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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



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AT EVENTIDE. 



DISCOURSKS 



BY 



NEHEMTAH ADAMS D. D., 
* * 

Senior Pastor of Union Church, Boston. 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPA 

FEAlTKLrN ST., COENEE OF HAWLEY. 




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L-rr. 







Copyriglit by 

D. LOTHROP & CO. 
1877. 



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THE PAST AXD PRESENT MEAIBEES. 
OF UNION CHURCH, BOSTON, 

AND TO 

MY BRETHEEX IX THE MINISTRY, 

THIS VOLUME 
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

BY 

XEHEMIAH ADAMS. 



Introductory Note. 
< » > 

The Publication of this Volume of Ser- 
mons, ALL PREACHED NEAR THE CLOSE OF AN 

ACTIVE MINISTRY OF NEARLY FIFTY YEARS, IS 

ENTIRELY DUE TO THE FOLLOWING KIND AND COM- 
PLIMENTARY letters: 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Charleston, South Carolina. \ 
January 22, 1874. ) 

Rev. Nehemiah Adams D. D., 
Boston, Mass. 

Dear Sir and Brother : 

The undersigned, Min- 
isters of the Gospel and Pastors of congregations 
in this city, remember with sentiments of unfeigned 
gratitude and pleasure, the visit you paid to our 
city, and the services you performed in our several 
churches, whilst you were the guest of your hon- 
ored son, our esteemed brother in Christ, Rev. 
William H. Adams. 

The frequent allusions to the pleasure and profit 
which your numerous friends derived from your 
ministrations whilst among us, have suggested the 
propriety of a more tangible memorial of these ser- 
vices than our unaided memories afford ; hence we 
have concluded to ask — if consistent with your 
iv 



COEEESPONDENCE. V 

views — for the publication of the sermons preached 
in the different Churches, and in the Orphans' 
Chapel of this city, as well as those which have 
been prepared for several occasions when the de- 
livery of them was prevented by Providential inter- 
positions. 

In addition to the treasure we hope to possess in 
having your labors in this place reduced to this 
permanent form, we also desire on our part, to bear 
grateful testimony to your eminent services for the 
truth as it is in Jesus. 

For the space of half a century your voice and 
pen have been most industriously employed in de- 
fence of " the faith once delivered unto the saints," 
and in your hands the Gospel trumpet has never 
given an uncertain sound. 

We would therefore feel honored in having our 
churches and ourselves connected, however re- 
motely, with the history of a servant of Christ so 
justly distinguished as yourself. 

In making this request, we would also cherish the 
hope that the publication of a book written by a 
Boston Divine, and its publication solicited by 
Charleston Ministers, may tend to the promotion of 
that "peace on earth and good will toward men," 
which is such a cardinal element in our holy reli- 
gion, and such an important desideratum in our com- 
mon country. 

With prayers for your continued health and use- 



Vl 



COEEESPONDENCE. 



fulness, and with considerations of highest respect 
and esteem, 

We remain, 

Yours in the Gospel, 

W. S. BOWMAN, \ ^%°\ °J, ^^"^ Wentworth 
' ( St. Lutheran Church. 

J. L. GIRARBEAU, -jP^^.*"'- °f ^w.r,™'or'- 
' ( nan Church, Glebe St. 

C. S. YEDDER, 



J. A. CHAMBLISS, 
G. R. BRACKETT, 
RICH'D D. SMART, 
J. T. WIGHTMAN, 
W. C. DANA, 
T. W. DOSH, 
L. H. SHUCK, 



( Pastor of the Huguenot 
I Church. 

( Pastor of the Citadel 
( Square Baptist Church. 

( Pastor of the Second Pres- 
( byterian Church. 

( Pastor of the Springy St. 
\ M. E. Church, South. 

(Pastor of the Bethel M. 
I E. Church, South*. 

( Pastor of the Central Pres- 
( byterian Church. 

( Pastor of St. John's Evan- 
( gelical Lutheran Church. 

( Pastor of the First Baptist 
I Church. 



REPLY. 

— < ♦ » 

Boston, February 3, 1874. 

To the Rev. W. S. Bowmai^^ and others^ Pastors of 
JEvangelical Churches in Charleston, S. (7., 

Deab Bketheen: 

Your letter of January 22, was read by 
me with a truly grateful heart. Your names, each 
of them, are associated with pleasurable recollec- 
tions of personal intercourse which can never fade 
from my memory, and your references to my visit 
among you last year will be a constant source of 
pleasure. The request which you so kindly make 
for the Sermons which I preached to your congre- 
gations shall be considered. Meanwhile accept the 
assurance of my wai*mest affection, with prayers for 
your continued prosperity. 
Most truly. 

Your friend and brother in Christ, 

N. ADAMS, 
vii 



VIU EEPLT. 

Letter from the Rey. Peof. Phelps of Andover 
Theological /Seminary. 

AsTDOVER, Mass., February 7, 1876. 

N. Adams, D. D. : 
Dear ^Brother, 

I am not sure that this letter is 
not a " twice told tale," — the object of it has been 
so often in my mind. I have read to-day, for my 
own comfort one of your own sermons in the vol- 
ume " Christ a Friend," and it suggests to me as 
your books have done a hundred times before, the 
query whether you have not among your manuscrij^t 
sermons, many which if published, would be an ad- 
dition to our homilitic literature. I have for many 
years recommended your sermons to my classes as 
illustrating a department of that literature which 
few sermons in the language illustrate as well. I 
have only wished that we had more of them in print. 
And now that the Biblical element in ]3reaching is 
receiving increased attention, I am confident that a 
fresh volume of sermons from you would fall in 
with that reform in the pulpit, and be well received. 
I tell my pupils "Do this, do that, with your 
texts, preach thus and talk so, in your discourses ;" 
and over and over again they ask me, " Who does 
it? Can you point us to the preacher who j^reaches 
so ? " I often direct them to your two volumes of 
Sermons. and wish they were twenty. Will you not 
look over your silent drawers of ma^uscript, and 



EEPLT. IX 

see if there is not something there which the Church 
of Christ wants ? Hoping that the years are deal- 
ing more lightly with you than they are with me, 
I remain as ever, 

Tours Fraternally, 

AUSTIN PHELPS. 



CONTENTS 



SERMON. PAGE. 

I. The Offers of the Gospel. . 13 
II. Have we Permission to Love God ? 32 

III. Paul's Estimate of Himself Be- 

fore AND After Conversion. 50 

IV. God Our Dwelling, and in Our 

Dwelling 71 

V. The Jew and the Roman Watch- 
ing THE Sepulchre. . . 8y 

VI. The Man at the Wheel. . 106 

VII. The Brief Mention of Astron- 
omy IN Genesis. . . . 118 

VIII. Emulation in Heaven among the 

Redeemed 136 

xi 



Xll CONTENTS. 

IX. The Counsel of Elihu to the 

Despondent. . . . 158 

X. •' Thou art the Guide of My 

Youth." .... 178 

XL The Doctrine of Gerizim and 

Ebal. ..... 194 

XII. On Loving THE Unseen Redeemer. 213 

XIII. On Passing by Angels to Re- 

deem Men 226 

XIV. The Broken in Heart Healed ; 

The Stars Numbered and 
Named. . . . . 245 

XV. The Removal of Israel's Cloud 

to the Rear. • . . . 262 



AT EVENTIDE 



I. 

TEE OFFERS OF THE aOSPEL, 

" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no 
money: come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, 
and without price. " — Isa. 55 : i. 

WE have here a man who wishes to dispose 
of something which he calls on people to 
buy. He is a minister of religion. He is like 
all true ministers of religion every where. They 
offer the same things, urge the same motives, 
and announce the same conditions of sale with 
Isaiah, who from ancient time has been called 
the evangelical prophet, because he dwelt so 
much on Christ and his times. 

Whenever such a minister enters the pulpit, if 
his heart is right, this is his purpose, to offer the 
same things once more to men. We are here 

(13) 



14 THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 

professedly for this purpose, to offer you some- 
thing. We shall speak, God helping us, hoping 
and expecting to succeed in persuading you to re- 
ceive at our hands that which we come to offer. 

Let me preface what I have to say concerning 
our object in appearing here from time to time, 
that every thing which you buy of us is war- 
ranted to be genuine and perfect. It has a 
government stamp upon it. The purchaser is 
perfectly assured against counterfeits. On 
every thing sold you will find engraved, for ex- 
ample, '• This is the true bread which cometh 
down from heaven." " That is the true light." 
" Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God." Moreover it has 
a divine seal, the seal of the Holy Spirit, called, 
" The earnest of the inheritance," signifying, as 
this subjoined phrase expresses it, " the pledge of 
the purchased possession," or warrant of some- 
thing laid up for us in heaven. 

We call your attention espepially to this seal 
on every thing which we offer, and which is con- 
veyed to every one who buys of us ; namely, he 
has in the gift of the Holy Spirit the pledge of 
something laid up for him in heaven ; that is, 
certain feelings, joys, hopes, are imparted to him 
under the influences of the Holy Spirit which 
are an advance payment of the heavenly inheri- 
tance. Under those influences one ma}^ say, " I 



THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 15 

know and am persuaded of the Lord Jesus that, 
feeling thus, I have a witness in my heart that I 
am born of God." This is the fruit of the Holy- 
Spirit ; his seal. So that accepting these offers, 
every thing which you buy of us is not only war- 
ranted ; it is guaranteed ; that is, not only is it 
perfect ; it is sure. 

In the name and by the authority of the Most 
High God we give, release, assign, and covenant 
with you to maintain, protect, defend, and guar- 
antee 3^o"ur title against all adverse claims forever. 
This we do in the name and by the authority of 
God. This is assured to us and to you in these 
words of the Saviour ; " And no man shall pluck 
them out of my hands." " Their inheritance 
shall be forever." ''• Your joy no man taketh 
from you." '' And my people shall long enjoy 
the work of their hands." " He that toucheth 
you, toucheth the apple of his eye." " The Al- 
mighty shall be thy defence." 

The security, you perceive,, is perfect ; " As 
the ipountains are round about Jerusalem, so is 
the Lord round about his people from this time 
forth even forever." Indeed it is more perma- 
nent than the earth. " For the mountains shall 
depart, and the hills be removed, but my kind- 
ness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the 
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the 
Lord that hath mercy on thee." 



16 THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 

Some people wlio liave bought the same things 
which we now offer you, have already held them 
for five thousand and six thousand 3^ears. Abra- 
ham invested largely in them ; his possession 
has increased, literally, as God promised him it 
should, as the stars of heaven, and as the sands 
of the sea shore. And he is the divinely ap- 
pointed representative of all who have faith in 
these things ; " for he is the father of all them 
that believe." 

The terms and conditions of sale in all cases 
are, payment on delivery. Any thing of a prom- 
issory kind is not received. 

You will wish to know how paj^ments are to 
be made. I answer, " Without money and with- 
out price." 

This, singular as we must all acknowledge it 
to be, is greatly objected to as exorbitant ; it is 
most unpopular ; it hinders our success. But 
God has so ordained it. 

We have been offered all kinds of payment as 
substitutes for this. Our purchasers are at. first 
extremely loth to buy " without money and 
without price." We could have sold every thing 
had Ave been wdlling to take payment in differ- 
ent kinds of commodities. 

Some have offered moralit}^, pure and good, as 
they called it ; though we have an assayer who 
" sits as a refiner of silver," and he says it is 



THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 17 

dross, as to any commercial value, if it be with- 
out the addition of that which he counsels all to 
buy of him. 

We have been offered tears of repentance, his- 
torical faith, respect for religion, prayers twice a 
da}', church going twice or three times a Sab- 
bath, and much during the week, almsgiving, 
visiting the sick, conviction of sin, fear of death 
and hell, abstinence from swearing and lying and 
all vice ; in short, every thing on earth, including 
bodily torture and martyrdom ; but not one of 
our treasures was ever sold in a single instance 
for one of these things. If any one pretends to 
have sold them for such things, Christ says of 
him, "the same is a thief and a robber." Our 
pearl of great price can be had only at great 
cost; viz: "without money and without price." 
There are no other things on earth sold at such 
a rate as these. You all know what this means. 
If one present says he does not know and wishes 
me to explain it, I must decline, for it would be a 
reflection of your understanding to explain it. 
You have all attended these sales for years, and 
you understand that this is that which we always 
get for our payment. And many of you know 
that these terms are the reason that you have 
not made the purchase. Every one else who has 
any thing to sell looks for people who ^have 
money. 



18 THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 

But our purchasers are in every case those 
who " have no money." If you have money you 
will not buy of us to-day. " Every one that 
thirsteth " for these things, and " he that hath no 
money," are purchasers ; " all others are merely 
idle, curious spectators. We are aware that ours 
are extremely costly, difficult terms, hard to 
meet. But we hope to persuade you that you 
will be gainers by the trade. 

The first tiling^ then, which we have to offer is. 
Eternal Life. 

Are there any here who wish for Eternal 
Life ? 

I hear some one ask if Eternal Life means liv- 
ing forever ? No. That might be the greatest 
curse. It will be the greatest curse to many. 
Some who have been deceived in this thing are 
now weeping and wailing. They now seek to 
be rid of that which was once falsely represented 
to them as eternal life. Could they but get rid 
of it, annihilation would be gladly received in 
exchange. When it is evening they say, would 
God it were morning ; and when it is morning 
they sa}^, would God it were evening. 

The eternal life which we offer you is in the 
soul. Life is not merely time ; it is a principle 
in our nature ; and when that nature is in 
healthy exercise you know that every thitig goes 



THE OFPEES OF THE GOSPEL. 19 

well. Eternal life is order, law, happiness, rigLt- 
eousness, prosperity, bliss ; and that forever and 
ever. Have you ever considered what forever 
is ? The longest journey on earth has an end. 
You get upon the summit at last and say, " Now 
we are at the top ; soon we shall begin to de- 
scend.'' But there is no summit to " forever." 
No Chimborazo, or Himalaya towering above 
every thing else. Onward and upward forever 
is eternal life. It is the best thing which God 
ever made. God's greatest gift is thus ex- 
pressed : ." And I give unto them eternal life." 
It is even coupled with the name of God : " This 
is the true God and eternal life." 

But any man can sell you any thing, and faster, 
than we can succeed in selling you this greatest 
of blessings. 

II. I WILL OFFER YOTJ A THRONE. 

But what authority have I to sell thrones ? 

Here is my warrant : "■ He that hath an ear, 
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches : " " To him that overcometh will I 
grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also 
overcame and am set down with my Father in 
his throne." 

One inquires, But how may you know that 
such things are to be obtained if we buy 
them? 



20 THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 

Here is the assurance from the evangelist John 
who enjoyed a sight of heaven : " And I saw 
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment 
was given unto them." 

He who offers these thrones, makes them. In- 
deed He, only, makes thrones ; " For by him were 
all things created, that are in heaven and that 
are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they 
be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
powers." 

He disposes of twelve of them at once : " Ye 
which have followed me, in the regeneration 
when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, ye 
also shall sit upon twelve thrones, j udging the 
twelve tribes of Israel." 

What does the throne which we are promising, 
govern ? 

Some who have now obtained these thrones 
have told us in the inspired language of 
prophecy, what for substance is meant by the 
promise, " And hath made us unto our God 
kings and priests ; and we shall reign on the 
earth." 

It might be injurious for us at present to know 
what this literally means. It is .sufficient to 
know that our future elevation can be expressed 
only by saying that Ave shall be priests of God 
and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thou- 
sand years. Am I trifling, using words with- 



THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 21 

out knowledge ? I use the words of God. I 
will vary my offers. 

III. I WILL OFFER YOU A CPvOWJS-. 

There is something more obviously possessive 
in a crown than in a throne. I offer you a 
crown ; and here you will at once agree that I 
am safe. " Be thou faithful unto death and I 
will give thee a crown of life." 

Paul had obtained one of these crowns ; 
" which," he says, " the Lord, the righteous Judge 
shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, 
but unto all them also that love his appearing." 

Paul was glad not to be peculiar in his crown. 
People of good sense do not love to be peculiar 
in that which they wear. Paul beautifully 
shows his modesty, his humility, in this. 

There is one thing to be said about the crown 
which you may obtain : It is capable, while we 
are in this world, of being greatly enhanced in 
value and beauty. Bring your jewels, and the 
Maker will set them for you. Paul's crown will 
be remarkable for this, the jewels which he 
obtained to be set in it. 

There are crowns for all, — for all them that 
lo.ve his appearing. 

" Think of the crowns which the ransomed shall wear," 

and obtain each of you one of them. Again : 



22 THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 

IV. Will you have a haep ? 

Those who love music and frequent tlie music 
halls surely will be attracted by this. 

The great company of heaven are represented 
as " having every one of them harps." Will you 
spend your existence in praise ? We are always 
happy when we are praising, if our hearts are 
in it. 

We read of the harps of God. Will you have 
one ? Will you praise forever ? " No more sor- 
row, nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
death." Will you join the song of redemption 
for eternity ? " No man can learn that song but 
they which are redeemed from among men." 
There is a harp for you ; but I pray you re- 
member this : It will not be hung up draped, if 
you do not take it. Some one else will take it. 
You might chance to hear it as you pass by and 
forever pass away, and think, how wonderful! 
surpassing the instruments of earth. You 
would be told, that harp was destined once for 
you. 

Secure it while it is called to-day ! 

V. Again, strange to say I can put you in 
possession of some thing more. You will hesi- 
tate to credit me when 1 tell you 

I HEREBY OFFER YOU EVERY THING-. 

For only listen to these words of God : " He 



THE OFFEHS OF THE GOSPEL. 23 

that overcometli shall inherit all things, and I 
will be his God, and he shall be my son." 

There is one word used in the Bible to express 
the idea of " all things." which are promised to 
every one who will accept them. That word is, 
Salvation. 

On this gift of salvation are inscribed such 
words as these : " He shall not be hurt of the 
second death." " They shall never perish, 
neither shall any man pluck them out of my 
hand." "And I will raise him up at the last 
day." " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." 

One peculiarity of it is, the author of it at- 
tends personally and bestows it. Hence He is 
called by the name of Salvation : " The God of 
salvation." Salvation is ascribed to him as pe- 
culiarly his work ; " Salvation is of the Lord." 
He is personally present whenever there is need 
of it, under all circumstances ; " Call upon me 
in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee and 
thou shalt glorify me." 

Thus we ministers of the Gospel professedly 
spend our lives, you providing for our temporal 
sustenance, and we repeating the invitation ; 
" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, 
buy and eat, yea come, buy wine and milk with- 



24 THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 

out money and without price." I say, tins is 
professedly our employment. Sometimes, per- 
haps, 3'ielding to temptation, we may feel that 
this is too monotonous, tame, not sufQciently in- 
tellectual ; so we are led " to please men " and 
to come to you with excellency of speech and of 
man's wisdom, seeking to gain popular applause, 
yielding to the plea that men must be pleased in 
order to be Avon. It is interesting to notice tliat 
the apostle who disclaimed human eloquence and 
the art of rhetoric, was without any attempt in 
those directions, the most finished model of "hu- 
man persuasion among all Avriters, his epistles 
being masterpieces of art ; while you nowhere 
discover in them any striving after scholastic 
skill. He carries out in his writings that which 
he says was his aim in preaching at Corinth, 
" the eye of Greece," as it was called ; the resort 
of the skilled professors of every branch of schol- 
arly attainment. Horace says, " It does not fall 
to every man to go to Corinth." " I am deter- 
mined," Paul says, " not to know any thing among 
3^ou save Jesus Christ and him crucified." So 
we preach, God helping us, whether men will 
hear or whether they will forbear. We have 
nothing to do but offer you the things which I 
1 have enumerated. We might make lyceums 
of our places of worship, entertain jon with 
science, literature, political disquisitions ; but we 



THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 25 

have no commission so to do ; we are not in- 
structed to lecture you on subjects of such tem- 
poral, fleeting interest as the news, and politics, 
or questions of the exchange and the street. Yet 
in our humble vocation we are not forbidden to 
be as eloquent as, Isaiah, as consummate masters 
of rhetoric as Paul, as wise as Ecclesiastes, as 
philosophical as the Evangelist John. But all 
the time we must make you feel that we are of- 
fering, you eternal life, a throne in heaven, a 
crown in heaven, and every thing else which 
God has to bestow, under the title of salvation. 

This we shall continue to do, though often- 
times we are compelled to cry, " who hath be- 
lieved our report, and to whom is the arm of 
the Lord revealed ? " We must often point out 
the consequences of neglecting this great salva- 
tion, show you the desperate wickedness of 3^our 
hearts, the fatal consequences of your unbelief, 
and not spare to repeat the inspired representa- 
tion of eternal damnation, with tribulation and 
wrath, indignation and anguish, on every soul 
that doeth evil. We must all the time be warn- 
ing you that the time is short; that the shadows 
are lengthening; that you know not what a day 
may bring forth. 

For, some of you, moved by our urgency in 
pressing upon you these offers, say to us in your 
hearts, *' Perhaps I Avill take your offers to-mor- 



26 THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 

row." Dear friend, perhaps you may not be in 
a situation to buy of us to-morrow. So long as 
you have not accepted our offers of a Saviour, 
you are living under condemnation; there may 
be put a step between you and death, of which 
we have illustrations every week. It is most 
wonderful that while God might do nothing in 
addressing us but warn, and threaten, he pleads, 
he solicits ; and the great apostle to the Gentiles 
uses this language : " As though God did be- 
seech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God." While doing this, 
the effect of which oftentimes is to lull, and 
soothe, he is speaking to those who have long 
since forfeited all claim on divine forbearance ; 
so that should the Most High whet his glitter- 
ing sword and cut us off, should he, as the 
Great Husbandman, say of us, " Cut it down, 
why cumbereth it the ground," there is no rea- 
son why the intercessor should plead : " Lord, 
let it alone this year also ; " for he did so last 
year, and the year before that, and five years 
ago, nay ten, and with some of you twenty, 
thirty, and with one and another even more. 
How can you, then, promise that you will to- 
morrow, perhaps, accept our offers, when you 
may not hear these offers again ! You may be 
imprisoned to-morrow for eternity. This call 
you may have occasion to reflect upon with 



THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 27 

never ceasing regret, sajdng, " How have I hated 
instruction and despised reproof." 

Some of 3'ou do not feel any need of these 
things. What can we do ? We cannot create 
your taste. All that we can say further of the 
things offered is, Here they are, full and free ; all 
things are read}^ Ho, every one that thirst- 
eth, come ; and he that liath no mone}', come. 

Some of 3^ou, I repeat it, dislike our terms : 
" Without money and without price." You say, 
These are a poor man's terms, a beggar's terms. 
You sa}^, again. Those who are invited to buy are 
those who are without money. 

Never was there a poor man, not even a beg- 
gar, so utterly poor and beggared as you and I 
are in consequence of sin. " All we like sheep 
have gone astray ; we have turned every one to 
his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on Him 
the iniquity of us all," But " Christ is the end 
of the law for righteousness to every one that 
believeth." Believing in his sufferings and 
death for you, will be the same as if you had 
kept the law of God as the angels have. The 
reason why heaven and salvation are " without 
money and without price " is, " Christ died for 
us." We once had a price to pay ; fallen angels 
are paying it now for themselves, and will be 
paying it forever ; which will be true of us if we 
do not accept the offer made by the Gospel ; 



28 THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 

" He that believetli on the Son hath everlasting 
life;" the consequence of neglecting to do so 
being thus expressed: "And he that believe th 
not the Son shall not see life, but the v/rath of 
God abideth on Lim." 

" And was the ransom paid ? It was, and paid 
(What can exalt its bounty more ?) for thee." 

Therefore it is without money and without 
price to us, because Christ, the God-man, tasted 
death for every man. Hear the Gospel in these 
few words : " Believe and thou shalt be saved." 

But if you think these terms are such as any 
one can easily meet, let me assure you they will 
seemingly cost you all which you have and are. 
One man went and sold all that he had and in- 
vested it in a pearl of great price which he hap- 
pened to meet with ; and Christ compares all 
who buy these things which we offer you, to 
such a man. A young man who came to buy 
and had great possessions was told by the Sa- 
viour, •' Go thy way, sell all that thou hast and 
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven, and come and follow me." The terms, 
he also felt, were very hard ; only heaven for- 
ever for his gold ! He went away sorrowful. 
What would he give to have the same offer made 
to him to-day ! He might have been an apostle. 
He might have written one of the Gospels. He 



THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 29 

might Lave been siirveyiDg m3aiads brought 
home to God by his words. Where now are his 
great possessions? Where are they? Ask, wdiere 
are the snows of that winter? And where is 
he ? He is somewhere to-day ; and we shall be 
"somewliere " when we die. 

I am not sure that I shall succeed in disposing 
of one of these thiugs to you. Must I return 
and say, " Mere, Lord, are thy thrones, and 
crowns, and harps, eternal life and salvation." 
Another lost opportunity ! '^ Who has believed 
our report ? " 

And why do I not succeed ? The principal 
reason is, the terms are, " Without money and 
without price ! " 

Again ; I am tempted to make you one more 
offer : 

VI. Take one of these things and you 

SHALL HAVE THE WHOLE. 

For instance, if jou will have a harp j^ou 
shall have a crown and throne. If you will love 
God and say as David did, " My mouth shall 
speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh 
bless his hol}^ name forever and ever," you shall 
have salvation and all things ; but on the same 
inexorable terms, viz: "Without money and 
without price." We cannot abate one iota from 
these terms. 



30 THE OFFEES OF THE GOSPEL. 

These thrones will one day all be set, these 
crowns be all put on, these harps be in hand, 
salvation will be complete, eternal life will be 
extending its reign over the full number of the 
redeemed. Listening, we perhaps shall hear 
your voice, you standing without and saj'ing, 
" Lord, Lord, open to us." Ah, there is a great 
multitude then without, wishing to buy. As we 
listen we hear them crjdng out in words like 
these : " How have we hated instruction and 
despised reproof ! The harvest is passed, the 
summer is ended, and we are not saved." Then- 
the voices fall to expostulation : " Will the 
Lord cast off forever ? and will he be favorable 
no more ? Is his mercy clean gone forever? 
Doth his promise fail forevermore ? Hath God 
forgotten to be gracious ? Hath he in his anger 
shut up his tender mercies ? " The song within 
proceeds ; the harpers harp upon their harps ; 
the multitude which no man can number, bow 
like a field of ripe grain with the wind passing 
over it ; crowns unnumbered are cast at the 
feet of Immanuel ; every throne is filled ; but 
where are you, who cares for 3'ou, who even 
thinks of you ? The Registries of Deeds are 
burned up, gold and silver are melted, houses 
and lands, the earth and all that is therein 
are in ashes ; voices are heard lamenting ; 
O, that they were wise, that they understood 



THE OFEEES OF THE GOSPEL. 31 

tins, that they had considered their latter 
end ! 

I have reserved one piece of information for 
this moment. It is this : 

VII. If you feel incompetent to buy 

THESE THINGS, THE PEOPHIETOR OF THEM, IF 
YOU SINCERELY DESIHE IT, WILL FUENISH YOU 
WITH THE DISPOSITION. 

He is able and willing. Only signify to him 
your sinful inability, your indisposition, to re- 
ceive eternal life, the crowns, the thrones, the 
harps of heaven without money and without 
price, and sincerely beg of him to give you a 
heart to make the purchase on his terms, and he 
v/ill do it. 

Now what can I say more ? He who sent me 
speaks ; let man be silent : " Wherefore do ye 
spend money for that which is not bread, and 
3'our labor for that which satisfieth not ? hearken 
diligently unto me and eat ye that which is 
good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. 
Incline your ear and come unto me, hear and 
your soul shall live, and I will make an ever- 
lasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies 
of David." 



II. 

EAVE WU PJER3nSSI0N TO LOVU 
aODf 

" I will love thee, O Lord, my strength." — Ps. i8 : i. 

IT will awaken surprise in you to hear this 
question, yet it cannot exceed mine on hear- 
ing it as I once did, from a distinguished man 
whom I had long regarded as truly devout. He 
was a member of one of the evangelical denomi- 
nations, a regular attendant on religious ordi- 
nances, a communicant, a firm believer in the 
fundamental truths of religion. Being together 
at the house of his relative, this man, of world- 
wide reputation as a man of genius, astonished 
me with this question when we were by our- 
selves: "What do you understand b}^ love to 
God ? " I looked at him with surprise ; but be- 
fore I could speak, he added, " I know what fear 
of God means ; but I do not understand what is 
meant when I am called upon to love God." 
Had I uttered the thought which arose in my 
(32) 



HAVE WE PEEMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 33 

mind, I should have said : " I always supposed 
you to be a Christian ; can it be possible that 
you have need that one teach you the alphabet 
of religious experience ? " I chose to put ques- 
tions to him which w^ould make plain the secret 
of his difficulty ; his frank nature encouraged 
me to ask them. His difficulty, I soon found, 
was this, that loving God implied a degree of 
familiarity which seemed to him unsuitable in a 
finite creature when approaching his Creator. 
He acknowledged that the language of the Bible 
encouraged the idea of familiarity in our inter- 
course with God ; still he preferred to explain 
all such permission by what he called Oriental- 
ism. In vain w^as it urged in reply that Orien- 
talism rather forbade than encouraged libert}^ 
in approaching Majesty ; prostration, even to ab- 
jectness, w^as enjoined on ministers of state, as 
well as menial servants. Still, he expressed a 
fear of presumption in drawing near to God ; he 
W'Ould stand afar off with the publican, and not 
lift up so much as his e}' es to heaven, rather than 
seem to' trespass beyond the limit of reverence. 

It w^as impossible not to love the spirit of hu- 
mility which seemed to actuate this man. Some 
I knew would doubt his piety, if they should 
hear him ask what it is to love God ; therefore I 
have never disclosed the conversation, being es- 
pecially careful not to make allusion to it since 



34 HAVE WE PERMISSIOiT TO LOYE GOD ? 

his decease ; no one therefore knows to whom I 
refer. It was my firm belief that he was a child 
of God, thougli his inqiiir}^ about love to God 
might stir a question to the contrary in some 
zealous, honest mind among his friends. 

His question has had two effects on me ; one, 
to make me endeavor to be charitable in judg- 
ing others ; the other, to make clear to me the 
answer to the question which I propose now to 
consider : Have we permission to love God ? 

It would not surprise me to know that there 
are serious persons in all our congregations who 
are reluctant to profess that they love God, for 
the same reason that the individual to whom I 
have referred Avas afraid to recoo^nize in his reli- 
gious experience so familiar an emotion as love. 
He could not withhold an assurance that he did 
fear God ; that this fear was not selfish, but rev- 
erence and godly fear. But it may be that he 
had heard some persons give utterance to emo- 
tions which they called love, but which seemed 
to him to betray a want of reverence for the 
Most High. So there are estimable persons in 
every religious community who are repelled by 
the freedom with which they hear others express 
their afPection for their Maker, when it seemed 
devoutly to be wished that his dread would fall 
on them and his excellency make them afraid ! 
Hence there are two extremes against which we 



HAVE WE PEEMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 35 

need to be on our guard. One is Familiarity ; 
tlie other is Stoicism. The apostles maintain a 
just medium between these extremes. We no- 
where find affectionateness in tlieir intercourse 
with Christ approach an undue freedom ; nor are 
we chilled by their reserve. The apostle John 
might have pleaded an excuse for any appear- 
ance of undue warmth of emotion. Peter Avith 
his wonderful experience of forgiveness Avould 
not have been blamed if his affection for his 
Lord had showed itself in enthusiasm at every 
mention of his name. But even Peter is a 
model of soberness in his affection ; we feel that 
his love is at full tide in his Epistles, but we are 
nowhere offended by the want of self-control. 

The question which I have already mentioned 
as put to me by a man of distinguished genius, 
was also expressed by a plain man, a mechanic, 
a member of an evangelical church. He was in 
the last stages of a decline, but in full possession 
of his faculties. Once as I was leaving his bed- 
side, he said : " One thing more I wish to ask : 
I lie here and talk with God in a way which 
startles me. I use expressions of endearment, 
address him by affectionate names, make requests 
as a child to a parent, indulge in words of adora- 
tion ; all of which, on second thought, seem to me 
too free for a mortal to use in his intercourse 
with his Master. Yet my feelings are so strong 



36 HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 

that I cannot restrain myself. Tell me, should 
I love Gocl in this manner? or should I repress 
my feelings and check my words ? " 

I said to him : " You ask, 3Iay you love God- 
thus ? The Saviour says, quoting the Old Testa- 
ment, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy strength, and with all thy mind.' Do jou 
ever exceed this ? " An expression of satisfac- 
tion came over his face. The next day he had 
gone to see Him " whom not having seen " he 
" loved." 

I was personally acquainted with the following 
incident in the experience of a lad, which I will 
mention for the instruction of the young, some 
of whom have questionings whether their relig- 
ious feelings are not to be suppressed as the 
weaknesses of childhood. 

A lad was on his way from school with others 
in playful conversation. When he entered his 
house he laid down his books in the entr}^ went 
to his chamber, locked the door, and heedless 
whether any one was in the room adjoining, said, 
in a childlike language, " O God, my Heavenly 
Father ! I have come to pray to thee. I do not 
want any thing in particular, but I love thee. I 
have come to say this. I don't know what has 
made me feel as I have felt this forenoon, but I 
have not been able to think of much besides 



HAVE WE PEElVnSSIOK TO LOYE GOD ? 37 

God. I never loved any thing so. ' Whom 
have I in heaven but thee ; and there is none 
upon earth that I desire besides thee.' Yes, 
there is one thing which I do desire, and that is, 
that all the scholars may feel so toward thee. 
There is, — " then he named five or six. Aftei 
a few words more he joined his brothers and sis- 
ters in their amusements, not feeling, probably, 
that he had expressed any thing of special inter- 
est ; yet it may be questioned whether in heaven 
that day there had been alleluias which had 
awakened divine approbation more than this 
child's 'pra3^er. 

Were we required to give a definition of love 
to God, we mio'ht well be at a loss for one which 
would seem more fitted to the subject than the 
feeling of this d^'ing Christian and of this child. 
For it.is questionable whether any thing could 
be found which better expresses love to God as 
we learn it from the experience of good men in 
the Bible. One expression is most common 
among them : " My God," — used as a term of 
endearment : " O God, thou art my God ; early 
will I seek thee. My soul longeth for thee, my 
flesh thirsteth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land 
where no water is." If there is one thing for 
which David is remarkable it is, Love to God ; 
and he is called " a man after God's own heart." 
The words of the text leave no room to question 



38 HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 

what was the predominent feeling of the sweeV 
Psalmist of Israel : " I will love thee, O Lord, 
my strength." Then he proceeds to heap up 
epithets of love to God ; " The Lord is my rock 
and my fortress, and my deliverer ; my God and 
my strength whom I will trust ; my buckler and 
the horn of my salvation and my high tower.*' 
He draws his epithets, you perceive, from his 
experience in wildernesses and caves. Suppose 
that he had been not a military, but a sea-faring 
man, he would have drawn his epithets from a 
sailor's experience. Among the objects of ex- 
ceeding joy to the sailor are the light house, the 
pilot, the harbor ; no words are more thrilling 
than "homeward bound," "safe home." We 
should hear David, if a navigator, say, " Thou 
art my light house, my pilot, my harbor ; to thee 
I am homeward bound ; with thee I am safe 
home." It may be confidently said that not 
even is romance more enthusiastic in passionate 
expressions than the poetry which is framed by 
those who love God and Jesus Christ. Such 
hymns as that by Dr. Watts beginning, " My 
God, my portion, and my love," and that by Mrs. 
Steele, "My God, my Father, blissful name," and 
hymns of all the ages of Christendom to Jesus 
Christ, reveal this truth, that such love is the 
principal emotion of the Christian heart. There 
is one branch of evidence here which can be ap- 



HAVE WE pee:mission to loye god ? 39 

preciated oiil}^ by the regenerate ; I refer to the 
experience of people at conversion. When the 
love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the 
Holy Ghost which is given to us, when the 
change takes place in our nature which is de- 
noted by being " born again," "created anew in 
Christ Jesus," " heirs of God and joint-heirs with 
Christ," when by as sudden a disclosure of spirit- 
ual things as Paul received on his wa}^ to Da- 
mascus, the mind first has a conception of God, 
is convinced of its sinfulness, its lost estate, when 
Christ is revealed to the mind as the Divine Sa- 
viour with as full a revelation as to Saul of Tarsus, 
making him cr}^, " Who art thou. Lord," then is 
kindled a flame of love to God and Christ which 
the apostle Paul declares to be comparable only 
to the creation of light ; " For God who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath 
shined in our hearts to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ." Then is fulfilled that passage in 
the Psalms : " He brought me up also out of an 
horrible pit, out of the miry el'dj, and set my 
feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 
And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even 
praise unto our God. Many shall see it, and 
fear, and shall trust in the Lord." Is. 40 : 2, 3. 
One instance will sufiQce to shov\^ what this 
experience is. It takes place everywhere under 



40 HAVE WE PEEMISSIOK TO LOVE GOD ? 

tlie preacliiog of the Gospel, sometimes in scores 
of cases at once. A man was riding iiome on 
horseback after evening service, meditating on 
what he Iiad Iieard. He was secretly persuaded 
to yield himself up to God ; when all at once 
light from heaven broke upon his mind, reveal- 
ing to him the way of salvation by Christ with 
a sense of peace with God and the jo}^ of par- 
doned sin ; so that he found himself in a new 
world. Unable to contain his 303^ at the discov- 
ery, having no one at home who could enter into 
his feelings, turniug his horses head, he rode 
back three miles to the minister's house, and 
called him to the door. Taking both of the min- 
ister's hands in his, he cried out : " O, sir ! what 
a God we have ! " which was -the substance of 
all that he said, for it was impossible for words 
to express his emotions, and he mounted and 
rode home, singing and pra}ing. No one would 
have found it more impossible than he to answer 
the question, " What do you understand by 
loving God ; " he, whose whole being was at 
that hour flooded with it, could have found no 
words to define his emotions. Does any one 
say, " Of what value can such emotions be to 
God ? " We might answer him. Of wdiat value 
is any thing to God ? He will one day give up 
this globe to fire. There is nothing of any value 
to God except love. The whole object of God 



HAVE WE PEKMISSION TO LOYE GOD ? 41 

in the Bible seems every where to have been to 
make men love him. You would not have sup- 
posed that those lightnings and thunder and 
voices on Sinai which made Moses exceedingly 
fear and quake, meant, " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart." But they 
did. As we read the Old Testament we find 
that God is continually directing his efforts with 
men to make them love him. His terrific judg- 
ments are owing wholly to the refusal of man to 
love God. Will loving God satisfy Him ? Let 
us inquire into the teaching of his word upon 
this point. 

I. The expeeiekce of men in the Bible 

SHOWS us THAT THE SUM OF HUMAN DUTY IS 

TO LOYE God. 

No book is more satisfactory on this point 
than Deuteronomy. Of the Saviour's three re- 
plies to Satan's temptations in the wilderness, 
two are from that book ; the third is also found 
there, though it occurs elsewhere. In that book 
we find Moses rehearsing to Israel their sins and 
the consequences of them in the judgments of 
God, how well it would have been with them 
had they but loved Him ; then what expostula- 
tions he uses to make them love God ! 

There was also that great captain, Joshua, who 
led Israel in the conquest of Canaan, taking 



42 HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 

cities walled up to heaven, slaying mighty kings; 
then in his farewell address to the nation using 
language which would sound strangely, we 
would all acknowledge, from the lips of the 
Queen of Great Britain to Parliament, or from 
any President of these United States. Imagine 
those dignitaries saying in their addresses, " Take 
good heed to yourselves that ye love the Lord 
your God." 

It deserves remark that he does not call upon 
them as he well might have done, in view of 
their stupendous history from Egypt through the 
Red Sea and the wilderness, to fear and tremble ; 
but, " take good heed to yourselves that ye love 
the Lord your God." Perhaps some will say. It 
was a strange method of making men love God, 
to threaten them ; to make men entreat that the 
voice might not be spoken to them any more. 
Let him consider that there is no way in which, 
on account of the hardness of our hearts God 
brings us to love him more effectually than by his 
terrible dispensations. 

We have seen those who had withstood the 
gentle methods by which God sought to bring 
them to himself; they have broken the cords of 
love, the bands of a man, which would have 
bound their affections to God ; till at last some 
great affliction has won their alienated affections ; 
fire has consumed their property ; failures have 



HAVE WE PEEMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 43 

set tliem at the foot of the liill which all their 
life time they had been climbing ; death has de- 
spoiled them of a companion or child, so that the 
pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at 
his reproof. Instead of growing sullen, then de- 
spondent, they have humbled themselves under 
the mighty hand of God, and he has exalted 
them in due time. 

Years after we have seen them walking the 
heavenward path, testifying, " It is good for me 
that I have been afflicted." " Before I was af- 
flicted I went astray ; but now have I kept thy 
word." In heaven they will probably adore the 
wisdom and goodness which devised the chas- 
tisement that brought them to their senses. 
" Why is it," we have heard them sa}^, "that God 
should in mercy have afflicted me, thereby bring- 
ing me to himself, while so many are left to have 
their portion in this life, and perhaps perish ? " 

These people can understand us when we say 
that Mount Sinai was intended to make men 
love God ; the law was our school-master, to 
bring us to Christ. There are doubtless some 
w^ho read these lines who look upon the trials 
which have crushed them as the chief blessings 
which God has bestowed. These trials will 
make the basis of their songs of thanksgiving in 
heaven. 

When night comes down in the Azores, the 



44 HAVE WE PEEMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 

lavender beds yield perfumes, which all day long 
the hot sun had consumed. After a storm we 
look for sea-mosses and pebbles which the Avork- 
ing of the sea has brought on shore. Solomon 
says in his praj-er at the dedication of the temple, 
" The Lord hath said that lie would dwell in the 
thick darkness." If God desires to draw a Cliris- 
tian ver}^ near to himself, he will almost always 
send a heavy trial upon him. David said, 
" When He hath tried me I shall come forth as 
gold." 

Satan thought that he would destroy the man 
of Uz ; so he moved God to put forth his hand 
and touch his flesh ; but it had the contrary ef- 
fect ; God said to the friends of Job : '' Ye have 
not spoken of me the thing that is right as my 
servant Job hath." We see Christians who have 
been grievously afflicted, cleaving to God the 
more that he smites them. God seems to shake 
them off, as the angel did wrestling Jacob ; but 
they will not be shaken off: "I will not let thee 
go except thou bless me." 

They testify that they never loved God so 
much as when he had taken their treasures from 
them. He sometimes chooses sharper arrows 
from his quiver, that we may turn to him that 
smiteth us. If He does this, in exchange for all 
which they have on earth. Christians sometimes 
come to the conclusion that God is the best Per- 



HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOYE GOD ? 45 

tioii ; that liis loving kindness is better than life ; 
that heavenly mindedness is well purchased by 
the loss of all things ; that to love God as Hab- 
akkuk did, is better than to have the fig tree 
blossom. Why is it better ? Because God says, 
" I love them that love me ; " and what if God 
loves a man? We would give up all that we 
have, including those nearest to us, when God 
bestows himself upon us. 

God in his infinite wisdom finds his " dechira- 
tive " glory in the happiness of his intelligent 
creatures. He resolves to make them love him, 
knowing that tliereby they will be happy, and 
their happiness will glorify him. Hence he seeks 
to make us love him. He sometimes uses the 
loudest voices in creation to proclaim, " Tliou 
shalt love the Lord thy God." He lightens, he 
thunders, he uses that voice which made Israel 
tremble, or the still, small voice which made Eli- 
jah who stood firm under the fire and earth- 
quake and the wind, wrap his face in his mantle 
and stand in the door of the cave. If God has 
set his love on a man he may honor him by great 
trials. He cannot trust all to bear great trials. 
They are not asbestos ; but combustible. But he 
said of Saul of Tarsus, " I will show him how 
great things he must suffer for my sake." 

Probably there is nothing which excites the 
admiration of angels more, than to see us loving 



46 HAVE WE PEEMISSIO:^- TO LOVE GOD ? 

God the more that he afflicts us. Then they see 
the power of faith; how it makes a man endure 
as seeino' him who is invisible. Ang^els see God 
face to face ; perhaps they never have any thing 
in their personal experience to try their confi- 
dence in God. But to see us in this sinful world 
loving an unseen God and Saviour, cleaving to 
him the more that he chastens us, seems to them, 
no doubt, a stupendous thing. 

Perhaps God afflicts some Christians to make 
of them a spectacle to angels and men. While 
men are pitying them, saying, " You have more 
than your share of trouble," it is because they 
can endure. God will let them see hereafter 
that the trial of tlieir faith was much more pre- 
cious than of gold which perisheth though it be 
tried with fire and was found unto praise and 
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ. 

II. The CROSS op Cheist is the Divine 

TESTESIOKY TO MAN, NOT ONLY THAT HE MAY, 
BUT THAT HE MUST LOVE GOD. 

There seems to be an argument on this point, 
addressed to man as an intellectual being, in the 
three epistles of John. That man had written 
"the fourth Gospel," as free thinkers call it, 
some of whom would sacrifice much could they 
undermine the confidence of men in its apostolic 



HAVE WE PERMISSIOX TO LOVE GOD ? 47 

authority. He had seen visions beyond the ex- 
perience of all the prophets. Now he comes to 
write some farewell lines to the people of God in 
all ages. What mighty work shall that be which 
is to crown his earthly labors ? Some Epistle to 
the Romans, perhaps ; or, it is the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, whose opening chapter alwaj-s seems 
like the tread of battalions. Instead of this, 
there is nothing in all the New Testament of 
more artless simplicity than those three epistles 
of John. It is given to him in those epistles to 
dwell upon this : God is love ; to enjoin upon 
Christians, not that they remember one and an- 
other of the important texts of the Christian 
faith, but that we have known and believed the 
love which God has toward us. 

God is not wisdom, nor power, nor holiness, nor 
justice ; though each of these attributes in him 
is infinite ; but the governing principle, motive, 
end, in his character is love. Strange would it 
be if love to God were not insisted on as the 
governing principle in his intelligent creatures, 
in man made after his own image and likeness, 
especially in the second birth conferred upon him 
by the Holy Ghost, the third person in the God- 
head, the author of the new creation. The Holy 
Ghost is the author of the human nature of 
Christ. Shall he be the author of Incarnate 
Love, yet fail to make man, renewed, for whom 



48 HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 

Divine love is made incarnate, partaker of love 
to God ? Shall man, his new creation, be a cold, 
phlegmatic, intellectual being ? 

See man's Redeemer an infant, then a man of 
sorrows, acquainted with grief, with no certain 
place where he could lay his head, despised and 
rejected of men, enduring every form of con- 
tumely, bound, buffeted, crowned with thorns ; 
consider him who endured such contradiction of 
sinners against himself; say, "He loved me and 
gave himself for me ; " recount each sorrow 
which he carried for us ; then ask. From what 
region of the earth did a man proceed who pro- 
pounded to us the question. Have we permission 
to love God ? We would in reply counsel him 
to consider that marvellous sentence in the writ- 
ings of the Apostle Paul who breaks forth with 
this strange utterance while sending messages of 
affection to the Corinthians : " If any man love 
not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathema, 
maranatha." Let him explain why the absence 
of love to Christ should deserve denunciation ; 
and why may not the absence of love to God be 
equally criminal ? 

May we be able to comprehend with all saints 
what is the breadth and length and depth and 
height ; and to know the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with 
all the fulness of God. 



HAVE WE PERMISSION TO LOVE GOD ? 49 

Nothing will probably occupy the thoughts of 
some through eternity with more profound as- 
tonishment than that they ever had to be asked 
twice to love God, except it be that God conde- 
scended to ask them twice to love him. Did the 
Almighty ever receive a refusal or neglect from 
me, and ask me a second time to love him ? Has 
he asked twice for my heart and asked in vain ? 
If the Final Judge pronounces upon one of us 
the sentence, " Depart from me," it will be the 
occasion of everlasting astonishment to that soul 
that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 
could severally and together say to him, " How 
often would 1 have gathered you — and ye would 
not." Let this appeal now prevail. If not, God 
grant that it may not prove to be the last. 



III. 



PAUL'S ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF BE- 
FORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 

" If any man thinketh that he hath whereof he might glory in the flesh, I 
more.'' 

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.'' — 
Phil. 3 : 4, 7. 

IN these words we have the apostle's different 
opinion of himself before and after conver- 
sion. 

We could not succeed in finding a better spec- 
imen of an apparently religious man before con- 
version, than Saul. He had deep reverence for 
God. He observed all the requirements of the 
faith in w^hicli he was brought up. We proba- 
bly err if we think that his conduct toward 
Christians was from a blood-thirsty disposition. 
It was zeal for his religion that made him a per- 
secutor. It grieved him to think that the Chris- 
tians should seek to overturn such a religion as 
Moses had received from God. No miracles 
claimed to be wrought by Christ, he thought 
(50) 



BEFOEE AND AFTER COETEESION". 51 

could go beyond the miracles of the Old Testa- 
ment. That religion was built on miracles, be- 
ginning with Israel in Egypt, the burning bush, 
the Red Sea, Sinai, Horeb, the conquest of Ca- 
naan, Mount Hor and Nebo. 

The idea that a man who had been crucified 
between two thieves, Avhile his timid followers 
fled, should be deified, after being stolen away 
from his sepulchre, all power in heaven and on 
earth be claimed for him ; that such men as Jo- 
seph of Arimathea, Nicodemus a ruler, and 
Stephen, should be duped by him, only exasper- 
ated him ; he felt that strong measures were 
needed to crush the growing delusion. Not 
from mere love of giving pain, but from zeal for 
God, he became a persecutor. 

When it became necessary to put such a man 
as Stephen to death, he was glad, no doubt, that 
natural courage did not fail ; he consented to it, 
and kept the raiment of them that slew him. In 
all this, he was still an accomplished scholar, a 
prominent member of Jewish society, but an un- 
believer, which in view of demonstrative evi- 
dence was inexcusable. Yet if any one had ac- 
cused hiui of cruelty from the love of giving 
pain, no doubt he would have resented it, and 
would have defended himself by setting forth 
the enormous imposture which he would say he 
was piously seeking to expose. 



52 Paul's estimate of htmself 

Xo one can read the religious papers of our 
times in davs of hio'li relioious excitement, with- 
out seeing how far even cultivated, men can go 
in opposing others who differ from them. Let 
some one who has become prominent in the com- 
munity as a champion of their sect become a con- 
vert to an opposite faith, and you will see in the 
studied sarcasms of some, perhaps their vituper- 
ation, open pity, the abandonment of him to 
what they consider deserved neglect, not to say 
contempt, for daring to impugn their faith. If 
these things are done in our day by those who 
claim to be Christians, we cannot wonder that the 
growing success of the Nazarene's supposed im- 
posture, should have carried even such a man as 
Saul of Tarsus beyond the bounds of humanity. 

All this time he was a liberal scholar, a polite, 
courteous, and in private, kind man. He could 
talk about Moses and the prophets, the Levitical 
law, the ceremonies of religion, the rules which 
ouo-ht to reorulate one's behaviour in societv, how 
much mint, anise, and cummin were a proper meas- 
ure of one's piety, if he wished to be scrupulous 
in keeping the law. It was a great satisfaction 
to him that all the externals of his religious his- 
tory were so unexceptionable. 

There was no question that he had been cir- 
cumcised the eighth day ; his lineage was un- 
doubted ; fhe Scribes had verified it ; in the 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 53 

tribe of Benjamiu lie delighted to find his name 
written. Young people loved to be told that 
they were of the tribe of " little Benjamin ; " 
they could not but feel even when grown up 
that there was fondness on the part of Provi- 
dence for all of that tribe. 

Young Saul had proved to the High Priest and 
all the estate of the elders that he was a true 
Israelite of that tribe. All the paths of distinc- 
tion were open to him ; but more than all, his 
pharisaic strictness in keeping the law, joined 
to his unquestionable Jewish descent, and his ar- 
dent piety evinced by his being willing to perse- 
cute for the defence of Moses and the prophets ; 
his determination to uphold the religion of the 
fathers, cost him what it might on the score of 
personal feeling, made him willing to challenge 
comparison with any young religionist the world 
over. 

Indeed, from what we know of Paul in his 
writings we are ready to believe that all which 
he says of himself in the text is far from boast- 
ing. For we may venture to say that the world 
fails to furnish us with a more lovely natural 
character than he evidently possessed. We may 
not suppose that he grew at once from a malig- 
nant fiend to such a perfect specimen of a man 
as his epistles show him to be. He must have 
had in him the germ of those remarkable quali- 



54 Paul's estimate of hemself 

ties wLich lie manifested in Ms intercourse with 
the Christians of his day. We infer from his 
writings that he suffered greatly from the tem- 
pers of men ; that the behaviour of some profes- 
sing to be Christians, was irksome to him in the 
extreme ; yet can we anywhere find such great- 
ness as marks his words of reproof ? 

Instead of studying Lord Chesterfield for prin- 
ciples of politeness in our intercourse with one 
another, it may be safely said, that a careful ob- 
servance of the treatment by Paul, of people who 
had given him occasion for offence, is the best 
guide to men and manners, to that true polite- 
ness which springs from benevolence. One can- 
not read, for example, the words of Paul to the 
Corinthian Christians, and remember their con- 
duct at the Lord's table, and not Avonder at the 
kindness which prevails in his reproofs. Paul 
must have had in his natural character a founda- 
tion for such things as he here and elsewhere ex- 
hibits ; much as he owed to sovereign grace we 
feel that he was a man greatly to be loved, and 
worthy to be studied ; he could not by imitation 
have acquired at once those traits of character 
which we find in his writings. Judging from 
the effects of conversion since his day, we are 
made to feel that he must have bad many amia- 
ble traits either by nature or education. 

At the risk of seeming to digress from my sub- 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVEESIOX. 55 

ject, I feel constrained to say that we greatly err 
if we let our children go at large in the world 
with evil companions, or furnish them with 
money to gratify every expensive, worldly taste, 
neglecting to restrain them, and to bring them 
up after a godl}^ sort, then, laying the blame of 
their not being converted, on ministers. Should 
they be converted we must not wonder to see 
them chastened by the hand of covenant love. 
If we spare the rod, God has one which he 
will surely use with our children, if he loves 
them. He will take them in hand, and, in 
dealing severely with them, break our hearts 
also. 

We see in Paul the beautiful effects of paren- 
tal culture. It seems as though* there had been 
verified to his parents the quaint saying, " Fill 
the waterpots with water and Christ will turn it 
into wine." Give the children right moral train- 
ing, not neglecting it because it is not " the one 
thing needful," in the comparative sense of that 
term. Though the fruit may not be seen at 
once, it will be seen when regenerating grace is 
given in answer to prevailing prayer. 

But to return. Here we have a man who by 
nature and education is a model man. The mor- 
alists, the religionists of that day v/ould place 
an}^ crown on his head which his ambition would 
have reached after. Indeed I shall gain the as- 



56 PAUL'S ESTOIATE OF HTSISELF 

sent of all when I say, — let young Saul of Tar- 
sus, the unconverted Saul, now appear in some 
parts of our country, and it would be deemed il- 
liberal, even bigoted, not to receive him into full 
communion in many of our religious circles. 
His differences of opinion on subjects of a relig- 
ious nature would be treated as mere matters of 
speculation ; it would be said, "If such a man 
cannot be saved, who will be ? Show us a pro- 
fessed Christian who is such an example of the 
virtues, the graces of character, of all which 
adorns humanity. 

" Listen to his lectures. The eloquence of 
Isaiah, the grace of Ecclesiastes, the tone of the 
old desert rhetoric of Moses and Elijah appear in 
his speech. Can he not be persuaded to modify 
his speculative belief about Christianity a little, 
that we may settle him over one of our churches? 
What audiences he would draw ! What a reve- 
nue would flow into that parish ! " Thus he 
would be the most admired of preachers, unless 
some accomplished Hindoo, for example, should 
arise, conceding things to Jesus Christ as a 
teacher ; and then the young Jew would prove 
to be superseded. 

All this excellence of natural character by it- 
self, however, is of no avail before God. Some 
would say. If Saul were such a man as you de- 
scribe, what need had he of being regenerated ? 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVEKSIOISr. 57 

Paul shall answer. We will now see this 
young Jew in the fulness of his attainments as a 
model man, casting it all away as a ground of 
justification, and, to use his most expressing fig- 
ure, counting it but dung. But tell us not that 
he has now become a fanatic, that he has gone 
from the extreme of pharisaism. Unless we are 
ready to believe that such a man became in one 
day a bigot, for nothing, yea, worse than nothing, 
for stripes, imprisonment, stoning, wearisome 
journeys, the loss of professional reputation, his 
standing as a scholar gone, death everywhere 
threatening him, we must candidlj^ inquire, what 
is tlie explanation of so mysterious a change ? 
His writings prove beyond suspicion that he is 
upright, and not only so, but severely logical in 
all this ; for was the epistle to the Romans writ- 
ten by a fanatic ? Does the book of Acts record 
any vagaries ? It is an unvarnished tale of 
Saul's conversion by the appearance to him of 
Jesus Christ with a light at noon surpassing the 
brightness of the sun, with a superhuman voice, 
saying, " Why persecutest thou me ? " We can- 
not withhold our belief from the declaration, that 
straightway he preached in the synagogues that 
Jesus is the Son of God. 

We find the burden of his doctrine from that 
time till his death to be, that " this is a faithful 
saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus 



58 Paul's estimate of himself 

Christ came into the world to save sinners," "and 
that for this cause he obtained mercy, that Jesus 
Christ might show forth in him a pattern of all 
long-suffering to them who should hereafter be- 
lieve on him to life everlasting." Four words 
contain the burden of his message : " Christ died 
for us." Going deeper into the explanation of 
the plan of salvation we find him dwelling con- 
stantly on this, that simply believing on Christ 
saves us ; that believing on Christ is imputed to 
a sinner for righteousness ; so that pardon is 
given for nothing except the taking of it in the 
ordinary way in which a guilty person accepts 
pardon . 

Eternal life is a gift ; this must be received 
freely, not be paid for by meritorious works on 
the part of the sinner. Then we learn from him 
that his previous good character, his excellence 
as a man was what he calls the righteousness 
which is of the law ; not the righteousness which 
is of faith ; that a man may strive to have the 
righteousness which is of the law, but it will 
perish ; that he tried the plan of being good as 
the way to be saved, but suffered intensely in do- 
ing it ; for this was his experience : " I find a 
law in my members warring against the law of 
my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the 
law of sin which is in my members. O wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 59 

body of this death ? " All the time so moral, yet 
so wretched ! Here is his answer to the ques- 
tion, " Who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ? " "I thauk God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." 

You would, perhaps, expect merely to find 
this man confessing only that he had made a 
mistake ; that now he had gained more light, 
and in consequence had changed his opinion 
concerning Jesus of Nazareth, that he still in- 
sisted on the moral virtues as the ground of sal- 
vation, taking Christ as an excellent teacher, 
admitting that the Sermon on the Mount was an 
improvement on the old law. You would, per- 
haps, look to see him come forth under the name 
of " the reformed Jew," retaining all his old 
opinions as to the way to be saved, admitting 
merely that Christ had given us more light than 
Moses. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. We 
may be surprised to find how he calls his whole 
past experience by severe names : " What things 
were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus m}^ Lord, for whom I have suffered the 
loss of all things." And what things does it ap- 
pear that he includes in the expression, " gain to 
me ? " The answer to this important question 



60 Paul's estimate of himself 

is seen in ascertaining the things for which he ex- 
changed them. Because these were the op- 
posites of tlie things which were " gain to him." 
We find him prizing the following things as pre- 
eminent beyond any thing which he ever was, or 
possessed, or knew before : — 

The first which he specified is, To know Christ, 
" That I may know him." That the last thing 
which once he could have desired, should now be 
the first object in this enumeration is wonderful. 
His writings tell us what he had found Christ to 
be ; instead of an imposter, " God manifest in 
the flesh, seen of angels, preached unto the Gen- 
tiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
glory." 

Worship paid to Christ now took the place of 
contempt ; love supplanted hatred ; gratitude 
was the new, strange emotion which ruled in his 
feelings toward Him. He began at once to study 
a theme which was to be his employment for- 
ever, — the God-man, instead of an imposter, 
God manifest in the flesh, instead of a pretender. 
To know him and the power of his resurrection ; 
which opened to the mind of Paul the future 
eternal state of souls, the truth of which even if 
known by him before, now shone in his mind 
with the brightness of a sun. 

Never had he before such contemplations as 
this revelation of the resurrection seems to have 



BEFOKE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 61 

given : for he became at once enthusiastic in his 
dehght : " If by an}^ means I might attain unto 
the resurrection of the dead." The prospect of 
being raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus, 
with a body like unto his Saviour's glorious body 
captivated him ; " it so filled his thoughts that 
nothing else seemed to bear any comparison with 
it : "I shall rise from the dead with a body like 
Christ's;" that expectation became his ruling mo- 
tive. He who before had such an aversion to 
the name of Christ that he entered into houses 
with authority from the rulers, dragging men 
and women to prison, compelling them by tor- 
ture to blaspheme the name of Jesus, now mak- 
ing it his chief joy " to know him and the power 
of his resurrection," when he would have a body 
" like unto his glorious body," is a marvel which 
even fiction has nothing to surpass. The fruit 
of it was a desire to have a " fellowship with 
him in his sufferings," longing to be like Christ 
to such an extent that he was glad even to be 
beaten, to be scourged for his name's sake ; even 
to be made " conformable unto his death." 

We have only to read passages from his pen 
such as the following, to see the secret of his en- 
thusiasm about Christ : " Who loved me and 
gave himself for me." " Remember them that 
have the rule over you." " Whose faith follow, 
considering the end of their conversation: 



62 



Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever." " I can do all things through Christ 
which strengthen eth me." " Who shall separate 
us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, 
or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril, 
or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more 
than conquerors through him that loved us." 

This wonderful change was not by a gradual 
process of amendment ; it was an instantaneous 
change. " Suddenly there shone upon him a 
light from heaven above the brightness of the 
sun." As one brought to life has his powers of 
body and mind put in action, though for a few 
days feebly, yet each hour gaining strength, 
so this marvel of regenerating grace became a 
new creature, " and straightway he preached 
Christ in the synagogues that he was the Son of 
God." 

Let any one of us imagine a change of any 
kind to happen to him. Suppose yourself to be 
invested with a power to read strange languages. 
A friend lately gave me a book consisting of one 
of the creeds composed of tw^enty-four articles, 
printed in thirty-three tongues. A few of them 
I could read, the rest were unintelligible, though 
in the EngMi characters, but the larger part of 
them, the Russian, the Chinese, the Assyrian, 
the Ethiopic, were in strange letters. Suppose 
that a power were given you at once to read such 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 63 

a book from beginning to end, or that you had 
the ability to travel from star to star ; or, sup- 
pose that any other bodily or mental faculty 
equally marvelous, became yours to-day at noon, 
and in a week you found yourself using these 
faculties as familiarly as though you had always 
possessed them. 

Paul thus suddenly found himself worship- 
ping, loving, and with all his mind and strength 
serving a man of Galilee, who he knew had been 
nailed to a cross between thieves, then was placed 
in a tomb, and stolen from it, he believed, by his 
friends, whom he himself was engaged but 
lately in tempting, while torturing them to blas- 
pheme. 

Standing chief among equals he had the pre- 
eminence, and kept the raiment of the men who 
stoned the first Christian martj^r. In two or 
three weeks, or less, he was preaching in the 
synagogues that this same Jesus is the Son of 
God. Such is converting grace ; in all men the 
same, notwithstanding the phenomenal circum- 
stances may be wanting ; yet substantial!}', the 
change is in every regenerated man the same. 
We perceive that one who had experienced it, 
must have had a different estimate of himself 
before and after it took place. 

Two things appear to have been the secret of 
the power wrought by Christ in the mind of 
Paul. 



64 Paul's estimate of himself 

I. Christ made him feel for the first 

TIME THAT HE WAS A SINNER. 

That was a neAv idea to liim. He a sinner? 
He had never sinned, he thought, beyond the 
common frailties of men. To atone for this, he 
had fasted, worn broad passages of Scripture on 
his dress, kept the Levitical law punctiliously, 
persecuted the Christians who offended against 
the religion of the Old Testament. Hear the 
man that once had no idea that he could be 
classed among sinners, afterward say, "Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners of 
whom I am chief." 

We hear him who once had such an estimate 
of himself as this, " touching the righteousness 
which is of the law, blameless," afterward say, 
" in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good 
thing." How can we account for this? There 
is no such teacher of self knowledge as Christ. 
When he takes possession of the soul, he makes 
a light shine through it brighter than the sun. 

"All the churches shall know that I am he 
that searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of 
the children of men." Simeon said to his mother, 
" This Child is set for the fall and rising again 
of many in Israel, and that the thoughts of many 
hearts may be revealed." The woman of Sama- 
ria understood this when she left her water pot 



■ BEFORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 65 

at the well and went into the city and said, 
" Come, see a man that told me all that ever I 
did ; is not this the Christ ? " 

I quote the language of learned men from their 
biographies, that the disclosures made to them 
under conviction of sin has opened to them a 
knowledge of their nature more than they have 
learned from books. Said an eminent man who 
late in life became a Christian, " I once thought 
myself as good as any who lived, or had lived ; 
but in one day, reading the New Testament, I 
suddenly became convinced that probably thei'e 
never was a heart which was worse than mine." 
So Paul : " I was alive without the law once ; 
but when the commandment came sin revived 
and I died." All who have passed through this 
experience declare, that the belief of the aton- 
ing death of Christ for sin, brings into the mind 
a marvelous experience. Everything seems to 
be revolutionized, and all this in consequence of 
perceiving " how that Christ died for our sins 
according to the Scriptures. Finding himself 
under condemnation as a sinner with no means 
of recovery, 

II, Paul discovered that through faith 
IN Christ a righteousness is provided for 

the sinner. 



66 Paul's estimate of himself 

This is safer than the righteousness which 
Adam had, or the angels that sinned ; for Adam 
and fallen ano^els lost their orioinal rig^hteous- 

O DO 

ness: Dr Watts says : 

" He raised me from the deep of sin, 
The gates of gaping hell, 
And fixed my standing more secure 
Than 'twas before I fell." 

For the righteousness which is imputed to one 
who believes in Christ cannot be lost ; it is " the 
righteousness which is of God by faith," not of 
man, by his works. So that it is better than the 
state of the first parents of our race, better than 
that of the ang^els who stood on their orio-inal 
sinlessness. Therefore, Paul made this the 
theme of his principal epistle, the Epistle to the 
Romans. Salvation by faith in Christ is thence- 
forth his theme. Through life it was uppermost 
in his thoughts. I cannot illustrate it better 
than by the following case. I was called to 
see an intelligent young lady who was sup- 
posed to be near her end. Though I w^ent 
as soon as requested, she exclaimed, " You 
have come too late ! " adding, that she had sin- 
ned away the day of grace. I told her that I 
would disprove this by one passage of Scripture ; 
but as I was saying this, the mother, a Christian 
woman, interrupted me by asking that I would 
not sit so near the bed as to touch the bed 



BEFOEE AND APTER CONVEESION. 67 

clothes, for the patient had a brain fever, and 
the least jar or touch seemed almost to distract 
her. The passage, I said, was this : " To him 
that worketh not, but believeth on him that jus- 
tifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him 
for rigliteousness." Helpless as she was, she 
turned herself over in the bed and said, " What I 
are such words in the Bible ? Say them again." 
After repeating them, I said, " If one feels that 
he has nothing to offer to God, but simply puts 
his trust in Him who died for him, pleading His 
merits instead of his own, his faith is imputed 
to him for righteousness. A calm came over licr 
troubled thoughts — she fell into a peaceful 
sleep. I said to her, on her recovery, as Paul 
said, " Eneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." 

We meet with many who>are acknowledged to 
be eminently moral people, patterns of amiable 
tempers, generous, and as Paul said of himself, 
" blameless." 

He tells us that, before his conversion, he was 
as good as they. " If any other man thinketh 
that he hath whereof he may trust in the flesh, 
I more." He felt that he was so good that he 
was willing to have Stephen put to death: "and 
when the blood of the martyr Stephen was shed, 
I also was consenting unto his death, and kept 
the raiment of them that slew him." In one 
hour he met with a change which made him a 



68 PAUL'S ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF 

new man, because he became acquainted with 
Jesus Christ as the atoning Saviour. 

We infer from his preaching that the impres- 
sion which Christ made upon him was, that he 
came into the world to save sinners. This made 
him feel that he was a sinner ; that his righteous- 
ness was worthless ; he could not be saved 
by it ; while he had whereof to glory, yet not in 
the sight of God. When he came to see his need 
of perfection in order to be justified, he saw that 
it was not attainable by him; that it was pro- 
vided for sinners by God, an imputed righteous- 
ness constituted by the merits of the Saviour ; a 
righteousness without works, perfection imputed 
to one deserving of hell, a constructive perfec- 
tion through faith in him who imputes his merits 
to the sinner that believes in him, and reckons 
faith for righteousness. Such is the plan of sal- 
vation by Christ, that it is declared to be " the 
power of God and the wisdom of God." 

The disclosure to him of this way of justifica- 
tion made him feel as nothing else ever did that 
he might be a sinner indeed, if he needed such 
justification. The ability of Christ to make a 
perfect righteousness not only for him, but for 
the whole world, seems to have convinced him, 
without argument, of the Saviour's divinity ; and 
he began at once to preach Christ crucified, to 
offer salvation to all men. The wall of separa- 



BEFORE AND AFTER CONVERSION. 69 

tion between Jew and Gentile disappeared at 
once from liis view ; lie proclaimed the righteous- 
ness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ, 
given to every human being for nothing. 

He saw that he must come without meritorious 
preparation, waiting for no re^Dcntance, no re- 
morse for sin ; that faith in the atoning sacrifice 
must be the one all-sufficient act of every sin- 
ner, which will be followed spontaneously by 
godly sorrow working repentance unto life. 

Paul saw that " if the righteousness of God " 
by faith in Jesus Christ, was the appointed way 
of pardon, then he never could be good enough 
to be saved by his own merits. After being jus- 
tified by faith through the redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus, he might become as nearly perfect 
as human nature is capable of being. But no 
one was ever saved by this, nor can be, for 
" Neither is there salvation in any other ; for 
there is none other name under heaven, given 
among men, whereby we must be saved." 

It is deeply interesting to know that this case 
of Paul's conversion, was intended as a pattern 
of all cases of conversion from his day. No one 
can suppose that circumstances of hours, place, 
language, and all the other incidents of each in- 
dividual can be the same, any more than the un- 
essential incidents of stature, place, and weather. 



70 Paul's estoiate of nnrsELE. 

But this passage makes it plain that conversions 
are the same all around the globe. " Howbeit, 
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first 
Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering 
for a pattern to them which should hereafter be- 
lieve on him to life everlasting." 

It is loving-kindness in God, our Saviour, that 
He works by a plan in redemption, doing the 
self same things for all from age to age ; from 
Paul to each heir of grace in our day. Let every 
one, therefore, looking to Christ for converting 
mere}' be assured of this, that " the same Lord 
over all is rich unto all that call upon him." 
There is great encouragement in this to every 
one who may now and hereafter be a suppliant 
for his grace. Perhaps, some of us may be 
tempted to think, " there never was such a sinner 
as I ; no one ever trespassed against such long- 
suffering, abused such forbearance." Let him 
who is tempted thus to test the willingness of 
Christ to make him a subject of his grace, re- 
member, that the man who said that "Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners, of 
whom I am chief," sets himself forever as a pat- 
tern of the Saviour's long-suffering to them who 
from that time forth should believe on him to life 
everlasting. 

You may prove that He is able and willing to 
save you, by believing on Him, " to-day." 



IV. 



GOD OUR BWELLma, AND IN OUR 
DWELLINa, 

" He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under 
the shadow of the Almighty." — Psalm 91 : i. 

WHERE is the secret place of the Most 
High ? There is such a place, a habita- 
ble place, for the text speaks of dwelling there. 

We can find it by two spiritual lines of meas- 
urement, as by latitude and longitude at sea. 
Longitude is not sufficient of itself, nor latitude, 
but bring the two together, and a child who has 
used a map knows how we determine places. 

These two measures, both of which being used, 
determine the question suggested by the text. 
As there can be no other place like this in which 
a man can abide, it is an inconceivable privilege 
to liave directions by which we can find it. This 
we can do with more certainty than we can find 
latitude and longitude. We will call it the rule 
of spiritual latitude and longitude. The longi- 
(71) • 



72 GOD OUR DWELLING, 

tilde, we will say, is the omnipresence of God. 
All do not practically believe that God is every- 
wliere. "He that cometli to God must believe 
that he is," we may say without assumption. But 
this is not enough. Many will acknowledge this 
in words, while thej^ have no realizing sense of 
it, as it is called, which makes it of j^i'fictical 
value. 

To know the longitude at sea would be of lit- 
tle use without another element in the calcula- 
tion, the latitude; as to know the latitude with- 
out the longitude leaves the mariner bewildered. 
Frequentl3% a passing ship will set her signals 
to inquire of another ship. What is your longi- 
tude ? though the latitude may have been deter- 
mined by the sun at noon. Hence the other ele- 
ment of measure to find the secret place of the 
Most High, though we know him to be every- 
where, is, A praying heart. 

As there is not a place on land or at sea whose 
location cannot be determined by the two meas- 
ures already given, so everj^ place in this world 
of faith, which serves for sight, can be determined 
whether it be the secret place of the Most High. 
For as one does not know at sea where he is, 
without reckoning, so no one knows any place in 
the secret place of the Most High, unless he 
brings these two things in conjunction. 1st, God 
is here. 2d, I desire to draw near to Him in 



AND IN OUE DWELLING. i6 

prayer. By these two elements 3011 may infal- 
libly ascertain that your heart is the secret place 
of the Most Hio'h. 

It is interesting to know that the place here men- 
tioned is not confioecl to one spot. A man may al- 
ways live under the same tent ; the place where 
he eats and sleeps will alwaj's be a secret place to 
him ; yet the tent maj^ be moveal.>le, sometimes 
in a valle}^, then on the side of a hill ; then upon 
the hill top. So the secret place of the Most 
High is moveable. At the risk of dwelling too 
long on the figure, I will venture to say, that as 
there is no latitude at the poles, no longitude at 
Greenwich, because longitude is the distance 
east or west from Greenwich and latitude is the 
distance from either pole, this represents that 
which heaven will be to us, Avhere tliere are no 
seeming distances from God ; for we shall no more 
walk by faith but by continual sight. But on 
earth in all our journeyings toward heaven, we 
have constant need to find the secret place of the 
Most High, that is, a place of communion witli 
God. 

The promise in the text is to such as make 
praying their breath; wlio hold 'continued com- 
munion with God, referring all things to him as 
their fixed habit ; breathing out love, adoration, 
confession, supplication, more intimately than 
they commune with the dearest friend. The 



74 GOD our. DWELLING, 

promise is, that tliey shall abide under the shadow 
of the Ahnighty. This may signify several 
things, as 1st, Nearness. A child walking with 
you abides under your shadow ; you are never 
far from him, you keep him in sight, within 
reach. 2d, Protection ; you shade him against 
sun-stroke. So " the sun shall not smite them 
by day." 

As though encouraged by the declaration in 
this verse, this good man resolves to make ex- 
periment of it. " I will say of the Lord he is 
my refuge, and my fortress." Such is the life of 
one who is godly. He applies the principles of 
earthly friendship to intercourse with God. Not 
a day passes when" we do not need a refuge from 
apprehension. This good man sa3's, " Be thou 
my strong habitation whereunto I may continu- 
ally resort." 

There are assaults of conscience, temptation., 
affliction, calamit}", pain. " I will say of the 
Lord, He is — my God,''^ Every thing seems to be 
summed up in these two words. They are the 
best which we can use ; they were the best which 
the Saviour could employ in the hour of his 
greatest need. " My God, my God ! " He who 
can affectionately adopt them has all things. He 
never need fear. He may say, " hi him will I 
trust." 

Some one here seems to speak ia reply : "Surely 



AND IN OJJR DWELLING. . 75 

he shall deliver thee from the snare of the 
fowler and from the noisome pestilence." The 
snare of the fowler is the peril of birds; they 
more easily see the sportsman and fly ; bnt tlie 
snare with leaves and grain scattered over it, is 
laid in secret. Such is our source of danger. 
We do not see what a mistake we are about to 
fall into in a bargain, or investment, or friend- 
ship, or connection. Pejiiaps a winning pleasure 
is cunningly devised by the great fowler for your 
soul. God's eye is on you when yours is not on 
him, if it be your habit to dwell with God. 

We look back in the course of the day in which 
we have experienced some great blessing, and 
remember that we reproached ourselves with not 
using such importunity or child-like love as would 
have been becoming ; or perhaps a sudden call 
prevented our devotion ; yet a wonderful merc}^ 
or, some gratifying intelligence has arrived, and 
we say, " Thou preventest me with the blessings 
of goodness," anticipatest my wishes. You know 
by your wards that you dwell in the secret place 
of the Most High, and God has rewarded you by 
looking after your interests. 

We cannot estimate the benefit of frequent 
prayer. Influences to prayer should be followed ; 
impressions which come over us when at work, or 
reading, or journeying, or waking from sleep. 
" Prayer and provender hinder no man's journey." 



76 GOD OUR DAVELLING, 

God stirs us up to pray, it may be, because he 
sees our coming need, or, because lie will do us 
some ^ood and would prepare us for it. 

Birds flying into noxious atmosphere sometimes 
fall dead. There was nothing to mark between 
the pure and pestilential air. Thus, perhaps, Ave 
are venturing into error by hearing or reading 
something, or resorting to baleful companies. 
God may, perhaps, restrain you while you are not 
aware of it. You miij wonder at some accident 
or interruption which kept you from going some- 
where, as 3^ou intended ; you murmured, perhaps, 
at the rain or snow storm, you were disappointed, 
but God was thereby delivering you from the 
noisome pestilence. We see calamity happen to 
others through foolish mistakes. God has cov- 
ered 3'ou with his feathers. Under protection 
from the parent bird, its young lie safe from the 
fowling piece, arrow, or bird of prey. 

One source of security to the good is confi- 
dence in the truth of God. It serves as a shield 
and buckler. It was so with Joseph in Egypt, 
with Daniel in Babylon, and the three children 
in the fiery furnace ; such is their safet}^, that if 
a plague raged, and thousands die, they may es- 
cape. In battle, no weapon formed against them 
may prosper. 

It is related in the life of Washington, that an 
Indian took aim at him several times when he 



A>^D IN OUE DWELLING. 77 

had reason to expect to see him fall, and lie won- 
dered that his shot failed. Perhaps he who guided 
David's slino' turned aside the rifle ball. I heard 
a miidster say in his pulpit that he knew a man 
who came to a friend's iiouse at midnight, on 
horse back io a storm of rain, to the astonishment 
of the family who knew that the bridge had been 
carried away. In the morning -they went to the 
river and found one of the timbers standing in 
the place across the stream, serving for a path to 
the horse's feet, so that the horse with more than 
animal sagacity, gave his rider to say of Him 
wdio preserved man and beast, " He maketh my 
feet like hind's feet." But terrible oftentimes is 
the end of the wicked. '' Surely thou didst set 
them in slippery places." 

True, one event outwardly seems often to hap- 
pen to all, both to the righteous and the Avicked ; 
but far different to good men and bad men is 
death by accident. Sudden deiitli is sudden 
glory to the good, while to the wicked it is sud- 
den destruction. 

In cases of detection, exposure, conviction, 
"only with their eyes shall they behold and see 
the reward of the wicked." Then to the good 
man is known the blessedness of a good con- 
science. Many are the congratulations in the 
book of Psalms and in Job to a good man, in con- 
.trast with the fate of the wicked. The sense of 



78 GOD OUE DWELLING, 

safety wliicli the rigliteous man has when he 
pours out his heai't to his preserver, appealing to 
him for a witness, " Thou knowest that I am not 
wicked," is a full recompense for self-denial in 
refusing to court human praise. 

God loves and rewards confidence in him. 
We are moved to do the same when it is showed 
to us. Few things are more grateful to us. We 
are always liable to suspicion in some minds. 
You do things which perhaps you cannot explain. 
Some, therefore, speak ill of you, and forsake 
you. Others give you credit for good motives 
when some things are dark. So we are led to 
feel confidence in God. Then, ''because thou 
hast made the Lord, which is thy refuge, even 
the Most High, thy habitation ; there shall no evil 
befall thee, neither shall any plague come 
nigh thy dwelling." 

Strange promise in such an evil world as this : 
" there shall no evil befall thee." It will prove 
to be " no evil." The promises are fulfilled by 
equivalents ; thereby faith is encouraged, per- 
haps rewarded. If we take God as he offers 
himself to us, he takes us with all our concerns, 
our frailties, mistakes ; he identifies us with him- 
self ; it is practically the same as though every 
one who makes God his refuge, his habitation, 
were omnipotent. " If God be for us," not only 
who is, but " who can be against us?" The 



AND IK OUR DWELLINa. i\) 

forces of the universe are on our side. Think 
of the meaning in such words as these : " thy 
habitation." Then, God is oar dwelling. What 
is your dwelling to you ? Such is God. Nor is it 
an accidental expression ; '' he that loveth dwel- 
leth in God and God in him." Can any plague 
come nigh such a dwelling to do real harm ? But 
dwellings can be plagued in other ways than by 
pestilence. We experience other forms of sal- 
vation when we are kept from being plagued, by 
evil dispositions, from annoyances which make 
life burdensome. When sickness is healed, and 
the joy of restoration succeeds trouble, rich 
fruits of gratitude, spiritual benefits of many 
kinds, compensate for the sickness ; that which is 
called an evil is converted into a blessing. 

No doubt there are angels in the dwelling of 
every one who fears God. If we thought that 
angels w^ere moving about in our habitations, 
those dwellings would seem hallowed. " Pie 
shair give his angels charge over thee to keep 
thee in all th}^ ways." God says, Behold my 
servant is beginuing a journey, or entering into a 
ship. Go with him in all his ways. Keep the 
ship from collisious ; fly before the locomotive ; 
see that the track is right, watch every revolution 
of the Avheels, '* lest at any time he dash his 
foot against a stone." 

If it be necessary iu order to accomplish some 



80 GOD OUR DWELLING, 

important purpose that there should be ship- 
wreck or other calamity, He can sa}^, Guard liis 
life ; defend the vital part ; he is an heir of 
glory ; minister to him. 

. Every one who discharges his duty, sooner or 
later meets with opposition. All who live godly in 
Christ Jesus will suffer some form of tribulation. 
It is easy in some cases to evade it. Some dread 
responsibility ; which it is true we ought neither 
to seek nor shun ; but when God lays it upon us, 
we may incur both secret and open hostilities. 
There is " the lion and adder," the dragon, with 
power at least to terrify. If you have truth on 
your side, if you meekly trust in God, he will 
cause you to tread on them all. " Behold I will 
make them which are of the synagogue of Satan 
which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie, 
behold I will make them to come and to worship 
at thy feet, and to know that I have loved 
thee." 

Not by our own right hand or wisdom will this 
appear; God will shape events, who alone doeth 
wonders. He can turn the Euphrates from its 
channel in one night, and fill Babylon with her 
enemies as with caterpiUars; He can make a barley 
cake tumble into the camp of JMidian and over- 
throw a multitude ; He can cause an iron gate 
to open of its " own accord," and let the won- 
dering prisoner pass through ; He can make even 



AND IN OUR DWELLING. 81 

tlie wratli of man to praise liim and restrain the 
remainder. He turns the tides of popular feel- 
ins:. To-day one is caressed, to-morrow tlie 
^yorld is in arms agaiiist him. Yesterday one 
was contemned, to-morrow there may be none 
like liim in almost universal esteem. Now a set 
of principles are repudiated ; soon they are 
adopted as the only salvation. 

A good man seldom need go about to defend 
his character by hunting down reports. He has 
onl}^ to do right, trust in God, and everything 
will be well. People often judge at once by re- 
sults. If a viper fastens on a man's hand, the 
barbarians think that he is doomed ; but when 
he shakes it off feeling no harm, they change 
their minds and say that he is a god. 

Xow God speaks, confirming the Psalmist's 
woi'ds ; and we cannot doubt that the Most 
High reciprocates every act of love : " Because 
he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I 
deliver him." There never was any misplaced 
confidence in God, however we may hav^e erred 
in our judgment of ourselves. "For the Lord is 
good to them that wait for him, to the soul that 
seeketh him. The prophet Isaiah saj's, "For 
since the beginning of the world men have not 
heard, what he hath prepared for him that wait- 
eth for him." 

Not only will God deliver the righteous man : 



82 GOD OUR DWELLING, 

"I will set him on liigli because he hath known 
my name." It would not always be safe for God 
to set us on high ; it is only safe when he has 
made us humble ; when w^e have forborne to 
avenofe ourselves. If one undertakes to avenore 
himself, God may stand aloof and let him try. 
But if we have made him our strong tower 
into which we run for safety, in due time he not 
only delivers us, but sets us on high. He causes 
ns to triumph ; He exalts us above destruction, 
shields US from malice, gives us signal prosperity. 
What can be better than this: "He shall call 
upon me and I will answer him." Let God an- 
swer when we speak, and all is well. Let a rich 
man say that he will honor any draft you may 
make upon him, and it may put you at ease. Let 
one feel that he has only to speak and friends 
come and stand around him ; and he is at peace. 
But will he never be troubled ? God says that 
"he will. " I will be with him in trouble." We 
are not worth much till we have been in trouble. 
We would not part with troubles which we feel 
have been blest to us. You would not but have 
had a sorrow which has proved a spiritual bles- 
sing. What would Daniel now take for the 
lions' den? or the Hebrew children for their 
being cast into Nebuchadnezzar's furnace ? or 
Peter, for his experience in Herod's prison ? or 
John, for his history while in the isle which is 
called Patmos ? 



AND IN OUR DWELLING. 83 

The best thing which God can do for a man 
sometimes, is to put him in a pLace like one of 
these, and be with him in it. Truly, this may 
be better tlian prosperity. When we are in pros- 
perity he may only keep us there. But if lie is 
with us in trouble lie says, " I will deliver him 
and honor him." It makes men afraid when they 
see God appear in behalf of a man. As we read 
the songs <f Hannah and Marj^, we are particu- 
larly struck with their allusions to their enemies, 
the exultation with which they triumph over ad- 
versaries. We are made to saj^, " Blessed are 
all they that put their trust in him." 

Thus it will be with the righteous till life has 
been so full of the goodness of God that the 
man will say, It is enough. When his time to 
die arrives, though it be sudden, he may start, 
nature may tremble ; but soon he grows calm and 
reflects : I have had full experience of God's 
love ; all that life can teach me and do for me, 
I have known ; its joys, its trials have had their 
designed effect upon me. 

" Why should not fruit when it is mellow, fall ; 
What do we longer here when God doth call ? " 

By "showing him my salvation," God does not 
mean merely "-bring him safely to heaven," but 
in getting him there will reveal the wonders of 
the way. 



84 GOD OUR DWELLING, 

A party of persecuted Huguenots fled, and 
mounted up a high place in a stormy night.' 
When the sun rose they came down and saw the 
wi^Y by which they came, narrow, precipitous, 
full of sudden turns. They stood and prayed, 
and sung ; God showed them his salvation. 
Thus you will be led by the Most High and re- 
visit all the eventful places of your earthly pil- 
grimage ; places now dark and sad. " And show 
him my salvation." As the morning of the 
third day of creation broke on the former world, 
revealing some of the works of God and disclos- 
incc. farther desiQ,-ns, so the lio'ht of heaven will 
fall on his doings with you, and you will see tliat 
all was good. 

We have been considering some of the richest 
and sweetest of the blessinofs which God be- 
stows on man. The Psalm which we have but 
imperfectly analyzed, contains in one of its pas- 
sages the conditions on which they are given. 
" He that dwelleth in the secret place of the 
Most Hio^h shall abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty." We have seen that this pas- 
sage has a paraphrase in the second verse : " I 
will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my 
fortress ; my God ; in him will I trust." It may 
seem a truism to say that religion is a most simple 
thing ; but a poet has ventured to say the same 
of the firmament : 



AND IK OUR DWELLING. 85 

" Like that which o'er our head we see, 
Majestic in its own simpUcity." 

The Apostle John, in his Epistles, gives ns in 
his style of thought, some wonderful correspon- 
dent incidents of simplicity which awaken sur- 
prise, as for example : " This then is the message 
which we have heard of him, that God is light, 
and in him is no darkness at all." " No lie is of 
the truth." " 11 we ask an}^ thing according to 
his will he heareth us." 

Religion is to love God, "to whom we have 
access by faith, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
Religion is so simple that the young may under- 
stand it as well as the learned. We see this con- 
firmed now and then in some young persons who 
have decided not to go the first half of the jour- 
ney of life without him ; that it is best to have 
God for their guard and guide at the outset. 
Even one who is old enough to have a conscience 
may consider whether he is not old enough to 
love God. We should not fail to notice the con- 
nection of these ^vords : " I love them that love 
me." We say then confidently to the young : 
This Psalm may be j'ours. The piece of 
paper on which it can be written is not so 
large as a tide deed to a ten foot dwelling; 
yet the Lord who dictated.it, you may have 
made your refuge, and the Most High your habi- 
tation. God manifest in the flesh in the person 



86 GOD OUR DWELLING. 

of Jesus, who was once precisely at jouv age, 
and witliout whom not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground, will not be more pleased wilh the love of 
angels, who always behold bis face, than He is 
with the love of the young, whom the Saviour 
bids men take heed that they do not despise. 
Seek enY^j this God and Saviour; the promise 
to all such is, They shall find me. 

Let every one set up an altar in their hearts 
and at their hearths. Make God your dwelling, 
and the Most High will make your house His 
habitation. 



THU JEW AND THE ROMAN WATCH- 
ING THE SEPULCHRE. 

" Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch : go your way, make it as sure as 
you can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and 
setting a watch." — Matthew 27 : 65, 66. 

HERE we see the Jew and the Roman watch- 
ing the Sepulchre of Christ while he lies 
entombed. God was about to complete the work 
of maji's redemption by raising up Christ from 
the dead. 

Notwithstanding their avowed unbelief, we can- 
not but think the approaching resurrection of 
Christ threw a shadow on the Jiearts of his ene- 
mies. Had tliey been thoroughly satisfied that he 
was an impostor, all that they Avould need to show 
would be the proofs of his dying, to answer any 
future pretence of liis being alive. Their en- 
deavors to forestall the expected assertion of his 
disciples, that Christ had come to life, proves that 
they regarded his resurrection possible. 
(87) 



bo THE JEW AND THE E0MA5J" 

PattiDg a living man in the tomb and stealing 
away the dead Christ, seems too clumsy a trick 
to give the enemies of Christ an}' real apprehen- 
sion. Concerning whom else did men ever feel 
it necessary to use precautions against his pre- 
tended resurrection, beyond an undoubted evi- 
dence that he had died? We would not brinsr 
a hasty accusation against the enemies of Christ, 
it would be in marked contrast with the evancfe- 
lists so to do. But when you remember that 
men had seen Lazarus raised from the dead b}^ the 
word of Christ, the daughter of Jairus and the 
widow of Xain's son brought back from death b}^ 
his command, would it not have been stranofe 
had they not expected something supernatural at 
his tomb? Graves had opened when he died; 
might.not the same happen at his tomb? The 
disciples probably had little if any confidence 
that he wlio could suffer himself to be betra3'ed 
and crucified, was able to make good any pro- 
mise of rising from, the dead. 

Guilt}' consciences frequently will apprehend 
dangers when the innocent fail to expect help. 
Therefore, the fears of the Jews were more than 
the hopes of the Clnistians ; so that the}^ used 
measures to prevent the evidence of a resurrec- 
tion from transpiring ; not merel}^ to keep thieves 
away from the tomb. They enlisted the Roman 
author! tv to aid them in confutino- the Saviour's 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHEE. 89 

promise .to re-appear on the third day. The 
chief priests and Pharisees came together unto 
Pilate, saying, " Sir, we remember that that de- 
ceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three 
days I will rise again. Command, therefore, 
that the sepulchre be made sure until the third 
daj', lest his disciples come by night, and steal 
him away, and say unto the people. He is risen 
from the dead : so the last error shall be worse 
than the first." Their fears of the resurrection 
and their efforts to prevent it, show how reason- 
able it is for the Scriptures to lay such stress on 
the resurrection as the crowning proof of the 
Saviour's claims. The life and the death of 
Christ had not failed to make his enemies feel 
uneasy. A voluntary watch could have sufficed 
in ordinary cases, but they would have something 
more imperative, an official guarantee from the 
government, which would admit of no suspicion 
nor resistance. Having no civil authority^ they 
were obliged to invoke the aid of the Roman 
Pilate for an official watch. He granted their 
request. "Ye have a watch," (a government 
guard stationed near the temple) "go your way, 
make it (the sepulchre) as sure as ye can. So 
they Avent their way and made the sepulchre sure, 
sealing the stone and setting a watch." Sealing 
it so that the soldiers and the Christians could 
not conspire without detection. 



92 THE JEW AND THE EOMAK 

ill Christ volunteered to spend the two nights 
and the one day, on guard before the tomb, to 
phace it beyond doubt that it was He who had 
slept there that had returned to life. But God 
who did not forsake his soul in Hades, provided 
for the Saviour a surer testimony. For we im- 
mediately see that however honestly intended, 
so partial, so interested a guardianship as that of 
his disciples would not have been wise. The 
Jews could have said, The Christians had a 
guard of their own ; of course they had oppor- 
tunity to do as they pleased in. tlie sepulchre. 
Tlie best thing for the Christians, therefore, was 
to be drawn away from the tomb. The less 
they were seen there, the better it would be for 
their reputation with their enemies. Let those 
enemies watch over tlie dead body of the Lord, 
thereby doing the thing most essential to placing 
the resurrection beyond all possible doubt. This 
his enemies did of their own accord. 

TJje wisest of men could not have contrived 
so excellent a scheme. If some of the Chris- 
tians, say, Joseph of Arimathea himself, wishing 
that the Saviour's promise to rise on the third 
day should have a perfectly fair trial, had re- 
quested Pilate to set a guard over the sepulchre, 
Pilate miglit have been suspected of conniving 
to favor the impression of the Saviour's having 
risen. Pilate's wife, who bad suffered many 



WATCHIXG THE SEPULCHRE. 93 

things in a dream because of him, could have 
been charged as accessory to the plot. No, let 
the enemies of Christ in their malice, be knoAvn 
as having sole custody of the Saviour's tomb, for 
so they will be able to satisfy themselves of his 
resurrection if he is to rise. His enemies will 
not surely steal the body, nor use surgical arts ; 
it is for their interest to keep the tomb so sealed 
up as to prevent a resurrection, or a removal of 
the body which might give semblance to a pre- 
tended resurrection. 

That which no wisdom nor contrivance of the 
Saviour's friends could b}^ any means accomplish, 
Avas done for them without their agency, by their 
foes. The faithful Joseph and Nicodemus were 
superseded as watchers over the crucified Re- 
deemer, by the civil power. The very murder- 
ers of Jesus were used by God to take the best 
possible care of his bod}' , and of his tomb. None 
but God, however, could influence them to as- 
sume it. The Christians could not have made 
them do it. Suppose that the Christians had 
challenged them to keep watch. Their cowardly 
consciences, struck with the bold assurances, 
might ha\ e shrank from the test. 

The last divinely appointed passover had now 
come. The moon which lighted Israel out of 
Egypt after the first, now rose on the last of the 
passovers ; their appointment receiving its ful- 



94 THE JEW AND THE BOMAN 

filment in the completed mission of the Soil of 
God. . 

Our earth must have become intensely inter- 
esting to angels, with the Prince of life sealed up 
in one of its sepulchres, and with him the hopes 
of prophets and the whole church of God, past, 
present, and to come. What if that tomb is now 
sealed up forever? He who said, "I am tlie 
resurrection and tlie life," is dead. The Roman 
power has taken in charge the sepulchre by al- 
lowing its guard to watch there. All the Chris- 
tians have gone from the spot in fear ; or such is 
their distrust of tlieir Lord's promise to rise again 
that the}^ have brought sweet spices to embalm 
his body, as if God were about to suffer his Holy 
One to see corruption. Had they expected him 
to rise the third day, of course no sweet spices 
had been necessary. Grief and bewildering fear 
are in their hearts, triumph fills their enemies, for 
imperial Rome itself, has condescended to help 
the crucifiers of Jesus, in demonstrating the 
falsehood of "that deceiver." 

And when at length God had fully served him- 
self of the Roman arm througli its representa- 
tive, Pontius Pilate, when the royal authority 
had stood guard long enough over the tomb of 
his dear Son to make it as clear as demonstration 
that the tomb had not been violated, that neither 
an ingenious plot nor a mistaken friendship had 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHEE. 95 

thrown the- shadow of a doubt on the question 
whether the Christ that was laid in the tomb was 
there still, then, very early in the morning of 
the third day, while it was yet dark, a single 
angel descended from heaven and rolled away 
the stone from the door of the sepulchre and sat 
upon it. 

What became of that cord which was stretched 
across the tomb door? Who dared to break 
those seals with the device of the Jewish princi- 
pal men upon them ? See you not those three 
crosses standing yet on Calvary ? Beware lest 
you be hurried to one of them by the same power 
which sent the impostor of Nazareth to die 
there. 

O, that moment unequalled in the history of 
this planet, and not to be surpassed at the con- 
summation of all things, when the victim of Cal- 
vary walked forth from that sepulchre and stood 
upon the earth. Not when he shall stand upon 
the earth at the latter day, will his triumph be 
more sublime. Not then will adoring angels 
greet him with stronger love than that which 
must have flooded their souls when they cried 
one to another, He is risen ! 

Honored angels ! who can you be among the 
sons of the mighty to have gained that distinc- 
tion from God to lay your hand on that stone and 
unseal that door ? One might have given you 



96 THE JEW AXD THE E0MA:N" 

every throne on earth for that seht of yours 
upon that stone. We fancy that you are tliat 
Gabriel who appeared to a Yu-gin espoused to a 
man named Joseph of the house of David, say- 
ing, " Hail, thou that art highly favored among 
women, the Lord is with thee ; blessed art thou 
among women." How appropriate for that same 
angel to announce before her the resurrection of 
her son. 

But no ! for the mother of Jesus is not amonof 
the women at the tomb. Can we believe ifc ? 
Consonant with our thoughts and wishes it would 
have been, had Gabriel repeated his annunciation 
to her at the door of her son's deserted sepulchre. 
Surely this angel is no Papist. Raphael, Ru- 
bens, all the papal artists, would have had Mary 
at the door of the sepulchre in her Son's arms. 
But there is not a word concerning Mary in con- 
nection with the Resurrection. We do not hear 
of her till in the Acts of the Apostles we find 
her mentioned among those who assembled after 
the ascension. What a divine touch is there in 
the absence of Mary, and of the mere human af- 
fectionateness of mother and child. Earthly re- 
lationships which we are all so apt to exalt over 
the spiritual and heavenl}^ are not recognized in 
the stupendous scenes of the Resurrection. 

Therefore, it may not have- been Gabriel, — 
perhaps it was Michael the archangel who sat 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHRE. 97 

upon that stone. For it was Michael who dis- 
puted with the devil in Moab about the body of 
Moses ; now, perhaps he disputes with Caesar, 
and Pontius Pilate, and Rome, and Jerusalem, 
abont the body of Jesus. Thus Moses and the 
Lamb were both of them, perhaps, for a time in 
charge of the archangel. His first dispute with 
Satan was safel}^ burying the bod}^ of Moses. 
This was to pluck from him that had the power 
of death, the Resurrection and. the Life. 

We are strongly impelled to fancy that it was 
the archangel who has in charge the resurrection 
of the dead, who rolled away the stone from tlie 
door of the sepulchre. Most appropriate would 
it be that he who has in charge the graves of 
God's elect, should be detailed to preside at the 
resurrection of Him who is the Resurrection and 
the Life. 

If the archangel Michael is one principal figure 
of this drama, who is the principal figure on the 
other side ? Pontius Pilate ! Think of this, ye 
followers of Jesus, and be not faithless but be- 
lieving. Unbeliever ! Pontius Pilate is your re- 
presentative ; ours is Jesus, the Resurrection and 
the Life. 

If there Avere ever any raptures in this world 
equalling the. raptures of heaven, it must have 
been when the Christians saw how God had raised 
up Jesus. We remember how much is said in 



98 THE JEW AND THE ROMAN 

the New Testament of the "mighty power" of 
God in raising up Christ, — "according to the 
working of his mightj^ power which he wrought 
in Christ when he raised him from the dead," 
But it was not so much the simple act of omni- 
potence in bringing him to life which illustrated 
the power of God, as the scheme by which his 
wisdom was employed to counteract the designs 
of the wicked. Prominent among the great acts 
of God in connection with this event, no doubt, 
was the divine contrivance by which he made 
his enemies and the enemies of his Son keep 
possession of that crucified body till it came to 
life. God has placed the body of his Son in the 
hands of his enemies to make plainly certain his 
resurrection. A man never feels more humbled ; 
is never placed in a more embarrassing predica- 
ment, than when his adversary makes him the 
means of showing the folly of his own doings. 

We may venture to imagine how the Chief 
Priests and Pharisees bit their lips and hardly 
looked each other in the face when they saw 
that their own cunning was the evident means of 
proving the identity of Christ at his resurrection. 
" HoAV much better," no doubt they said, " if in- 
stead of sealing up the sejDulohre and keeping 
watch over it, we had let the tomb remain open, 
and so had given the Christians a chance to steal 
the bod}^ ; then there could have been no possi- 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHRE. 99 

bility of proving conclusively that Christ came to 
life. But we ourselves have furnished the es- 
sential evidence of his identity. No friends 
could so well have done this. We are cauoht in 
our own net, and in the pit which we have dig- 
ged have we fallen ourselves." 

You see what power of meaning is thus given 
to such passages as these : "But God raised him 
from the dead," and those words once before 
quoted ; " According to the working of his 
mighty power which He wrought in Christ when 
He raised him from the dead." It shows more 
wisdom to do a thing by wise contrivance against 
opposition than by a mere word of omnipo- 
tence. Therefore, when the Christians saw what 
was done, and received again from the dead their 
infinite Friend, we may ask. Which filled them 
with the greatest pleasure, which imparted the 
greatest strength to their hearts, — that Christ 
was risen, or the manifest interposition of the 
Almighty in effecting it ? Surely that word, 
" Thou didst it," was after all the foundation of 
their joy. 

I. This passage of saceed histoey il- 
lustrates THE TEUTH that GoD HAS " MADE 
ALL THINGS FOE HENISELF, YEA, EVEN THE 
WICKED FOE THE DAY OF EViL." 

" There is no counsel nor wisdom nor under- 
standing against the Lord." 



100 THE JEW AND THE EOIMAN 

Many think of God, of his attributes and provi- 
dence, as mere conveniences, useful upon oc- 
casions. Human affairs, they seem to think, are 
governed by an eternal necessity they know not 
what, and God appears in them to keep them 
steady with a little help, no more, however, than 
a steersman renders in keeping a ship true to the 
wind, over which wind, however, he has no con- 
trol. The true doctrine in opposition to this is, 
that man and his affairs are appointed instru- 
ments in the hands of One of whom, and by 
whom, and through whom are all things, to make 
God himself known, for the one hundred and 
seventh Psalm, and all the Hebrew triumphal 
odes are mainly occupied in glorifij-iug God ; not 
in chronicling the marching of a host, but the 
stately goings of the Most High. 

The Red Sea was for God to show his power, 
the famine was for his gift of the manna and 
quails, the thirst was for the rock to be smitten ; 
the rebellion against Moses and Aaron was for 
the earth to open ; the hard pursuit of Saul 
around the hill to cut off David was for God to 
send the messenger to Saul saying. The Philis- 
tines are invading the land. Jehosaphat's inva- 
sion by the children of the east was for an angel 
of the Lord to slay a hundred and eighty-five 
thousand of them in one night. Peter was im- 
prisoned that an earthquake might open the 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHRE. 101 

doors of the prison. Paul and and Silas were 
beaten and put in the stocks, to make their jailor 
ask a question, echoing through all ages, " What 
must I do to be saved ? " 

And so the sleeping Saviour was affectionately 
guarded against any injudicious act on the part 
of his friends, and was delivered over to his ene- 
mies for safe-keeping against them, and to con- 
vince the world that no stratagem had con- 
founded his identity ; in order tliat he who was 
to be the Resurrection and the Life might be de- 
clared to be the Son of God with power by the 
Spirit of holiness which raised him from the 
dead. 

II. Some Christians are chosen of God 
TO display by their great trials His 

POWER AND WISDOM, AS ChRIST WAS BY HIS 
DEATH AND BURIAL AND RESURRECTION. 

Such Christians may be said to have been 
statuary marble, while other blocks were used 
merely for doorsteps and posts, emploj^ed for the 
divine artisan to show some immortal statue. 
So that we shall hereafter sa}^, " Behold, happy 
is the man whom God correcteth : " and we 
would gladly send from heaven this message to 
surviving friends, — '' therefore despise not thou 
the chastening of the Almighty." It is an honor 
to have God interest himself in your affairs, 



102 THE JEW AND THE EOMAN 

making use of them as He does of the black 
cloud, to bend the rainbow upon it. 

The wickedness of men instead of casting us 
down, ought to make us look for the appointed 
time when God will show his power and make 
his wrath known. Is there a more terrible thing 
said against bad men than this ? " When the 
wicked spring as the grass and when all the 
workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they 
shall be destroyed forever." Thus if the pros- 
perity of the wicked shall destroy them, it 
should never dishearten us. 

In bad times, moreover, we may be sure God 
is carrying on his work in many an upright 
heart. The dreadful temptations which infest 
our cities and large towns, appealing to the 
senses with arts which venture closer every year 
to the brink of shamelessness, are strengthening 
the virtue of such as make the first Psalm their 
rule, and " walk not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in 
the seat of the scornful." 

III. Bad men should be objects of pity 

KATHER THAN OF FEAK OK ANGEK. 

In the first place, there is an eternity of weep- 
ing before them unless they repent ; and in the 
next place, one of their chief sorrows there will 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHEE. 103 

be that all their deep laid plots were made use 
of by the Most High to accomplish his purposes. 
We do not see how the work of redemption 
could have been accomplished had it not been 
for such men as Judas and Pontius Pilate. " The 
Lord hath made all tilings for himself, yea, even 
the wicked for the day of evil." Some enemy 
must draw the cord across the door of the sepul- 
chre and seal it and set the guard, to keep the 
dead Christ from the well-meant approach of his 
friends ; else the proofs of his coming forth alive 
will not be complete. 
Finally, — 

EVEEY THING RELATING TO THE EESTJEREC- 
TION OF ChBIST is UNSPEAKABLY INTERESTING 
FOR THIS REASON, " He WAS RAISED AGAIN FOR 
OUR JUSTIFICATION." 

Many do not see the reason of this ; they do 
not appreciate the evident stress which the Scrip- 
tures lay upon Christ's rising from the dead. So 
long as he died, they feel that their redemption 
was made complete. Let us submit our pre-con- 
ceived opinions to the Divine will. The satis- 
faction which Christ made to divine justice was 
not publicly acknowledged by God till he had 
raised Christ from the dead. Had he not been 
raised, the plan of redemption would not have 



104 THE JEW AND THE EOINIAN 

been completed. He " was decUired to be 
the Son of God with power by the spirit of 
holiness which raised him from the dead." 
We were not to be saved bv a dead Christ. 
In Roman Catholic countries we see many dead 
Christs. He must die for our sins, it is true, 
but as a Saviour he is not made perfect till it 
can be said, "It is Christ that died, yea rather, 
that is risen again." Had his bones been broken 
on the cross like those of tlie thieves, his death, 
indeed, would have been equalh* effectual ; but 
it was not the purpose of God to redeem us by 
subjecting the crucified body of his Son to the 
needless indignity of maiming. The same Di- 
vine wisdom chose that a dead Christ should 
not be a perfected Redeemer. We are glad that 
we are not justified by a dead Christ. Had we 
been, we should receive him as now we accept 
the whole mystery of redemption, — " but God 
raised him from the dead," and " by him we be- 
lieve in God who raised him from the dead and 
gave him glory," and we receive him just as he 
is revealed, a risen Redeemer, all his work of 
satisfaction for our sins sealed by the Almighty 
when he raised him froni the dead. 

Therefore consider what a glorious thing it is 
to be justified by faith in Christ, seeing that such 
an event as his resurrection was essential to 
make him perfect as your Redeemer. 

If everything else in your Redeemer is as 



WATCHING THE SEPULCHEE. 105 

great and glorious as his resurrection, you who 
have had this Christ imputed to you as your 
righteousness, have received from God the great- 
est of all his gifts. 

Believer ! God has already done for you spirit- 
ually that " which he wrought in Christ when he 
raised him from the dead and set him at his own 
right hand in the heavenly places." You are 
redeemed if you are in Christ. All that Christ 
is, all that Christ has done, is made over to you 
by your simply believing in Him. All the pow- 
ers of sin in earth and hell cannot hinder your 
salvation. 

. The sign of the cross is to you the symbol of 
the atoning death of your Redeemer ; the break- 
ing, by the hand of God, of that seal which the 
Jew and the Roman had placed upon the Re- 
deemer's tomb, is the sign and pledge of your 
completed redemption. "Rejoice evermore." 
"Pray without ceasing." "In every thing give 
thanks." 

" Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ," 
to every one who yet needs his grace ; " as 
though God did beseech you by us ; we pray 
you in Christ's stead, be je reconciled to God." 
We preach unto you Jesus and the Resurrection. 
The hour is at hand when nothing else will seem 
to you of any importance. Therefore " seek the 
things which are above, where Christ sitteth at 
the right hand of God." 



VI. 

THI] MAN AT THE WHEEL, 
(written at sea.) 

" Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to 
glory." — Psalm 73 : 24. 

DURING a long voyage few things inter- 
ested me more than the man at the wheel. 

While some of the crew were heaving the an- 
chor, one sailor took his place at the wheel, point- 
ing the ship on her course before the anchor had 
risen a few feet from the ground. 

In a voyage of a hundred and eleven days to 
San Francisco, and thence to the Sandwich Is- 
lands, China, the East Indies and New York, 
there was a man at the wheel every moment, day 
and night, in storm and sunshine. Every man, 
except the officers, was in his turn two hours at 
a time during the whole voyage, the man at the 
wheel. Not till the word of command was given 
(106) 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 107 

inside the Golden Gate, * " Let go the anchor," 
was the wheel deserted. Every two hours, the 
man at the wheel was relieved by some ship- 
mate who knew when it came his turn. The 
man at the wheel would say what point of the 
compass must be kept in mind ; the man taking 
his place would repeat his words. " South west 
by south half south," says the man who seizes 
the wheel to take his place. 

Going on deck at midnight there is the man 
at the wheel. Coming up to watch the sunrise 
you salute the man at the wheel. During a gale, 
if you venture on deck curious to see the swell- 
ing ocean, you find the man at the wheel. In 
a dead calm, the ship motionless, there stands the 
nian at the wheel. The sea runs high, the wave 
looks down upon you as though it would swal- 
low you up. " Meet her ! " cries the mate ; the 
man at the wheel swings the bowsprit in the 
teeth of the billow; 3'ou go- up to the heavens; 
then down again into the deep. 

You always feel on shipboard that there is one 
man doing something for you. During divine 
service on Sabbath morning, two men at least, 
are always absent, one, the officer of the deck, 
the other, the man at the wheel. If you start 
in your sleep you instantly tliink. There is at 
least one who is awake, the man at the wheel. 
I never passed him day or night, without giving 



108 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 

and receiving a salutation. You feel that he is 
your personal friend. 

The compass lies directly in front of the 
wheel ; the binnacle lamp shines all night upon 
the compass, which points the way the ship is 
headed, and the man at the wheel is told to keep 
her so. If the wind sets her off her course the 
endeavor is to get as near to it as the wind will 
allow, keeping the sails " full and by " the wind, 
the steersman using his discretion how to do so. 

One cannot see himself thus continually kept 
on his course through the deep without being re- 
minded that if he is a child- of God, he has 
Christ Jesus as the man at the wheel to his soul 
as trul}^ as at ever}^ moment of a voyage, how- 
ever long, he has a man at the wheel of his ship. 
Without presumption, but with the utmost con- 
fidence, with full assurance of faith, every one 
who loves God may sav to the Saviour, " Thou 
shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward 
receive me to glory." He may be as confident 
of the incessant guidance of his soul by Christ, 
as the passenger is of the perpetual service of a 
man at the wheel. 

It used to occur to me. Suppose that instead 
of having twenty-eight men taking turn, each of 
them two hours at a time, to steer me across the 
globe, the service were done by a single man who, 
day and night should be my steersman, standing 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 109 

eveiy moment at the wheel, buffettecl by the 
gale, pelted by the rain, scorclied by the sun, 
stramiug every sense in the dark nights to guard 
against collisions, till finally I should see the an- 
chor dropped in the desired haven, without any 
casualt}^, dela}^ loss, damage, from the beginning 
to the end of the voyage, I could not part with 
that man without emotions unutterable. Yet 
here I am on the voyage of life with One at the 
wheel who has been there from my infancy to 
the present hour, to whom I may with joyful 
confidence repeat these words, " Thou shalt 
guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards re- 
ceive me to glor}^" 

We bless the memory of this translator who 
used the word "shalt" in this passage, instead 
of " wiit." He lets David here speak not pro- 
pheticall}^, but trustfull}', confiding himself to di- 
vine guidance, not merely foretelling that he will 
be guided, but declaring his willingness to be. 
There may be. all the difference between a be- 
liever and unbeliever in sajnng " shalt '' rather 
than " wilt " in such a case as this ; whether you 
as from the heart, avouch the Lord God to be 
your Supreme ruler, or merely declare that He 
will be. Using here the word " shalt," implies 
a cordial choice of divine guidance. He who 
has made such choice has the hand of infinite 
love on his helm. Some helms seem to have no 



110 THE MAK AT THE WHEEL. 

hand upon them. They steer wild. They are 
blown about ; sometimes they are in the trough 
of the sea ; they have broached to ; some of them 
go down forever. 

One would think that none would need to be 
repeatedly told, " In all thy ways acknowledge 
him, and he shall direct thy paths." We meet 
vessels of every maritime country at sea, and 
every one of them has a man at the wheel. It 
is not thus with all on the voyage of life. By 
the way in which some steer, joi\ might al- 
most imagine Satan at the helm. But there are 
others who have made that inspired direction 
their rule : " In all thy ways acknowledge him, 
and he shall direct thy paths." It was so with 
a good man, foreign born, who had lately found 
a home in one of our cities as missionar}', who 
was offered a situation instead of one which he 
then filled. The gentleman urgently requested 
his answer at once. The good man replied, " O, 
not now ; [ have not mentioned it to the Lord." 

The Old Testament everywhere makes the im- 
pression on a serious reader, of God's particular 
providence. If any are ever inclined to unbe- 
lief, there is a portion of Scripture biograph}^ 
where we should suppose that they would as soon 
as any where, stumble. We might ask them, 
not, " Do you believe that Joshua made the sun 
and moon to stand still ; but, Can you believe 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. Ill 

that the being who made the worlds, once came 
to the bedside of a boy, called to him, " Samuel ! 
Samuel ! " and when the child awoke he ran to 
Eli, and was told by him to lie down again for he 
did not call him ; God came the second time and 
called, " Samuel ! Samuel ! " and the child went 
to Eli again, and again was sent back to his bed, 
and the third time God came and called, and 
again he insisted that Eli did speak, and Eli per- 
ceiving that God had called the child, told him 
to answer accordingly, and the fourth time God 
came and said, " Samuel 1 Samuel ! " and then 
broke to him his purposes and made the child his 
messenger, acquainting him- with some of his 
purposes, — I repeat the question, can you be- 
lieve this? Will you believe.it? Do 3'OU be- 
lieve it? then you are in one good sense a 
believer ; you have a commendable faith ; you 
only need to exercise the same simple confidence 
in the New Testament, to have in a more impor- 
tant sense, faith, wdiich, accompanied by lieart- 
felt reliance on Christ as the sinners substitute 
before the law of God, answering its righteous 
demands by his atoning death, would make you 
to be in all respects a believer, as truly as Abra- 
ham was who, in an exemplary sense, was the 
father of all them that believe. If you believe 
in the historical narratives of any of the Old 
Testament miracles, it may be gratifying to you 



112 • THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 

to know that the words of David in the text, 
can by the help of the Holy Spirit be acted upon 
by you, will be, as soon as you are willing to say 
with David, to David's Lord and David's son, 
" Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and 
afterward receive me to glory." 

This faith may be exercised by you through 
the operation of God at any moment. For 
wherein does the greatness of God consist ?• 
There is one thing in the acts of God too great 
for some men to believe. Not that he made 
the distant . planet Uranus. I never met with 
one who could not believe that which astrono- 
mers tell us of his perturbations and their prob- 
able cause. But I have met with men who, 
while they believed all this, could not believe 
that this God numbers the hairs of their heads, 
or that not a sparrow falls to the ground witli« 
out him. That was too much for their faith ; 
which proves that God's condescension is more 
incredible to many, than his omnipotence. 

It is not too much to believe that God may 
have arranged and has in mind at one and the 
same moment myriads of worlds, their geolog}^, 
mineralogy, crystallogeny, botau}^, their animals 
and birds ; but that such a Being will guide a 
man with his counsel, and afterward receive him 
to glory, is oftentimes too much for faith. With 
no more power to explain this than others, you 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 113 

believe it. That willingness to believe it so im- 
plicitly is one kind of faith ; only exercise it with 
the heart in regard to the words of Christ in 
what he sajs of the soul, its present character, 
its destiny, the way in which alone it can be 
saved ; and then, for there is still one thing with- 
out which all this faitli will prove useless, 
with all your heart accept the offers of this Re- 
deemer, love him, be his disciple, and consent- 
ingly say to him, " Thou shalt guide me with 
thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory." 
There are some who have believed all this who 
do not have the consolation to which they are 
entitled, because they fail to keep this faith in 
exercise. 

Instead' of reading treatises on faith, and try. 
ing to understand speculations on things beyond 
our knowledge, they will be far more happy, for 
they will make more progress in religious 
knowledge, if they will sit by the side of Sam- 
uel's bed, listening to the Almighty as he talked 
with liim I owe more to talk with children 
after tliey had gone to bed than to books, 
if I ever have had lessons in faith. Their in- 
quiries, which I could not answer ; their implicit 
but wondering acquiesence in my statements, 
have tauglit me more than the teachings of men, 
how to receive with meekness, tlie engrafted 
word Avhich is able to save the soul. Their 
confidence in my love and care has done more than 



114 THE MAK AT THE WHEEL. 

many other things esteemed among men, to make 
me understand how I am to love God, and how 
God loves them who trust in Him. 

That which tlie sailor whon he is at the wheel 
does for all on board, He who is the " Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor," accomplishes, but in a far 
higher sense, every moment day and night, for 
his believing child. The hands of the man at 
the wheel are in effect tied to it while he is 
on duty as steersman. There is One who can at 
the same time act for us in the capacitj^ of the 
man at the wheel, but also do everything else 
needed b}^ us on the voyage. 

It was kind in the captain of our ship to close 
our window shutters for us one nisfht in a ter- 
rific storm of lightning off the Rio de la Plata, 
that Ave might sleep. So the watchman of Israel 
sometimes closes the senses of a dying friend 
wheh about to pass through the valley of the 
shadow of death ; suffering the friendly delirium 
to act the part of a veil. In" numberless ways 
does he make kind offices act the part of friends 
when indeed friends could not discern our need ; 
or render aid, even could they discern our ne- 
cessity. Christ is doing wondrous acts of kind- 
ness for us all the time. When you are asleep 
he is perhaps directing the thoughts of some who 
on the other side of the globe are at that instant, 
under their noonday sun, inditing letters which 
may deeply affect your welfare. 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 115 

While we are under the guidance of tliis om- 
niscient, omnipotent Friend, it is wonderful that ' 
we are in full possession of free agency. • I have 
already quoted the command which the mate 
sometimes gives to one steering, when he sees an 
enormous wave ready to break over the side of 
the ship. " Meet her ! " he cries ; an elliptical 
sea phrase, meaning, make her meet it; so in- 
stead of suffering the billow to swamp the ship 
by coming upon her broadside, she by turning a 
little out of course rides the wave safely. Thus 
he sometimes says to us in view of a coming duty 
or danger, " Meet her." With the word he fills 
the heart with inward strength. We seem to be 
making use of self-inspired courage, but it is 
God that worketh in us to will and to do of his 
good pleasure. 

Was it mere fancy when I said that some souls 
make one feel as thouc^h Satan was at their 
helm ? No, for the Bible speaks of the spirit 
that now worketh in the childi-en of disobedience ; 
it tells us to admonish them, that they may re- 
cover themselves " out of the snare of the devil, 
who are led captive by him at his will." 

In the days of Odin and Thor in Great Britain, 
and in times of witchcraft in some parts of our 
country, we know how fearful a thing it \Yas for 
one to believe himself possessed by an evil spirit. 
It is enough to make the stoutest heart shudder to 



116 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 

read in the New Testament of one wholly given 
up to the possession of the devil and his legions. 
The Apostle Peter says to Christians, " Be sober, 
be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, 
vi^alketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom 
he may devour ! " If then, even the best of men 
are liable to be his prey, how must it be with 
those who tempt the devil with hearts standing 
wide open, filled with wicked passions and evil 
desires, thus soliciting the devil instead of wait- 
ing to be tempted. 

Such are we, if not under the protection of 
Christ. Every heart is either under the protec- 
tion of, or led captive by, the evil one. If we are 
under the protection of Christ, guided by his 
counsel, we are safe in any place, in the worst 
company, if we are there against our will or 
without our choice. Daniel and his companions 
were safe in the palace of Babylon. Joseph was 
safe in Potiphar's house. I have known young 
men and hoys subject day and night to the 
worst examj)les, in the forecastle and on shore, 
•who seemed to be purified by the fiery furnace 
of sin which burned around them. In their 
prayers they could say, " Thou shalt guide me 
with thy counsel." 

We notice the wa}- in which God is said to 
guide " with his counsel," and not by force. 
"I will guide thee with mine eye." We must 



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 117 

give heed to the suggestions of conscience. ''Be- 
hold also the ships, which .though they be so 
great and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they 
turned about with a very small helm, whither- 
soever the governor listeth." When we take the 
Bible in our hands it should be with prayer. 

The suggestions of the Holy Spirit are " the 
man at the wheel" in our souls. God, the 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it is not too much 
to say, will be to each one that which is repre- 
sented b}^ a human hand upon the helm of a ship. 
It is not too late to regain Him if we have lost 
his guidance. When we find ourselves in evil 
company, we may be sure that we have not been 
led thither by the Divine Author of the First 
Psalm. Some will have this for their painful re- 
flection without end: — My Saviour, the Judge, 
offered to be " the man at the wheel " to my soul. 
We may froin this hour have him whose name 
is " Wonderful, Counsellor," to guide us through 
life and afterward receive us to glory. It was 
not a meaningless record. " Then they willingly 
received him into the ship, and immediately the 
ship was at the land whither thej went." 



VII. 

THE BRIEF 3IENTI0N OF AS TR OST- 
OMY m aENESlS. 

"He made the stars also." — Genesis i : i6. 

The narrativ^e of creation passes over the stars 
with brief notice. After saying that God made 
two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, 
and the lesser light to rule the night, it says in 
the Hebrew, — "the stars also." The words, 
" He made " are in italics. 

The stars had been created when Genesis was 
written. The nearest fixed star was twenty bil- 
lions of miles from the earth. As light travels 
two hundred thousand miles a second, if a star 
in Centaurus for example, had been struck out 
of existence at the death of Moses, it would be 
more than eleven thousand years hence before 
its light would disappear ; the star would for 
that length of time be apparently in the same 
place. The planets beiug at their nearest ap- 
(ii8) 



ASTEONOMY IN GENESIS. 119 

proach to one a.notlier so distant, there must be 
solitudes between them inconceivable ; so that 
could we measure the universe by its solitudes 
alone, no finite mind can conceive of its boun- 
daries. 

While this was before the mind of God, noth- 
ing is disclosed in revelation unless in keeping 
with the limited knowledge of the age when the 
Bible began to be written. That limited knowl- 
edge was to be stationary for thousands of j^ears. 
We can conceive what perplexity would confuse 
the minds of men should the pen of inspiration 
write in a way transcending the knowledge of 
men, on a subject which takes such hold upon 
human curiosity as astronomy. A benevolent 
regard for human happiness would need to say 
a great deal, if it said anything, upon this sub- 
ject. This would be opening the gates of knowl- 
edge more than was consistent with the scheme 
of providence. None but infinite wisdom could 
keep the gates of knowledge so closely barred 
that some disclosure would not inadvertently be- 
tra}' the secrets of nature ; say something which 
would make men half insane to know what was 
meant when they could not be told without dis- 
closing things so many and so j)i'ofoand, that 
many would turn astrologers. 

We know what miscliief was wrought by as- 
trology. We may confidently say that the silence 



120 THE BEIEF MENTION OF 

of the Bible is a powerful proof that it is. the book 
of God. There is somethiDo^ more interestinof 
than science, something more important than the 
starry world. It is not life eternal to know 
what are the sweet iniiaences of Pleiades, the 
bands of Orion. 

The book which the Most High wrote for men 
is not a book of science. You would suppose 
from much of the literature of the day, that the 
very best thing is to be scientific, by all means 
literary. While the Bible inculcates early in- 
struction with discipline, it seeks to make men 
feel that to know God and the way of peace 
"with him, are the first things to be understood. 
Having learned these, we are taught that there 
are to be no bounds to our knowledge. But the 
Bible is not a book of science ; yet science is of 
practical use. Had the Romans, for example, 
understood the scientific truth that water in 
pipes under or above ground conveyed even 
to great distances, will rise as high as its source, 
it would have been of immense practical use ; 
for the knowledge that water in a pipe could 
after going down into a valley, come up of itself, 
would have s'aved untold wealth besides labor. 

None of these things, however, were subjects 
of divine revelation ; yet none but the wisdom 
which is infinite would have omitted them in its 
disclosures ; for had men been allowed to dictate 



ASTEONOMY IN GENESIS. 121 

a divine revelation, undoubtedly we should have 
had at the ver}^ beginning an encyclopedia of 
useful knowledge. 

The history of such a people as the Jews, we 
imagine, would have been disposed of in a brief 
space, with all the lessons which it teaches con- 
cerning the character of God and our duty to- 
ward him. Such an age and people as that of 
the Greeks at their highest advancement, would 
no doubt have been celebrated in revelations, yet 
the Bible speaks of them disparagingly in com- 
•parison with that which it declares to be its great 
theme. " The Greeks seek after wisdom ;" — 
more than intimating that the wisdom which dis- 
tinguished Greece was not the principal thing. 
There was something which Greece never found, 
greater than all its lost arts. 

Seeiug the disproportioned value which men 
place on human learning, we can easily think 
what stimulus would have been given to curi- 
osity, had the Most High set the example of ele- 
vatifig mere knowledge to the first place in our 
estimation. Wisely has our Divine instructor 
refrained from setting us such an example as to 
m"ake his revelation a series of disclosures con- 
cerning mere scientific truth. 

The Apostle Paul tells us that " whether there 
shall be prophecies they shall fail, whether there 
be tongues they shall cease, whether there be 



122 THE BEIEF MENTION OF 

knowledge it shall vanish away." For after we 
reach heaven, the humblest of our race who shall 
be saved, will in a brief period know more of 
the universe than the wisest of men here who 
know not God. 

In a recent eulogy on Humbolt who, all agree 
had not a superior, if he had an equal, in scien- 
tific knowledge, the author, a great naturalist, 
discussed the question whether, he was an Athe- 
ist. He had found a sentence in his volumin- 
ous works which contains a mention of God as 
Creator. Think of this, fellow men ! The 
greatest of your race in mere scientific knowl- 
edge in modern times, the most adventurous ex- 
plorer among the works of God, instead of over- 
flowing with adoring tributes of love to Him, 
makes it necessary for his eulogist to search his 
books in order to find whether he did really be- 
lieve in God. If he did not, the least in the 
kingdom of heaven is greater than he, for the 
Bible tells us in the passage just quoted about 
prophecies and tongues and knowledge, that all 
distinctions of knowledge in this world will 
vanish away. 

The light of heaven will make our present in- 
quries with their most brilliant results pale by 
the noon-day brightness then to flood them. 
There the nian who did nothing but stud}^ na-^ 
ture, neglecting that truth, "he that loveth 



ASTEONOMY IN GENESIS. 123 

knoweth God," Tvill be left to confusion, when 
some of the weakest men shall come to know by 
intuition all which the other had arrived at after 
years of toil. If there is one of our race who 
will be most pitiable hereafter, it will not be so 
much the rich fool who said to himself, " Thou 
hast much goods laid up for many years," as the 
great scholar, who had he been a worshipper of 
God with faith in his Son, our Saviour, would 
have been greatly prepared by his earthly studies 
for immediate advancement in knowledge con- 
cerning the works of God. Having only sought 
and found the knowledge of material things he 
will see hereafter that those who worshipped God 
in Christ are at once abreast of him in such knowl- 
edge ; that then and ever after they are to be his 
superiors, while he must be consigned to dark- 
ness with his misused powers. 

While the Bible is in effect the most literary 
of all books, has given existence to more vol- 
nmes than any other stimulant of thought, more 
of the master pieces of painting, for example, 
being suggested by it, than by any other, so that 
the human mind has been in a larger measure 
cultivated by works of imagination drawn from 
it than from any other source, — still the Book of 
God was not written for that as its avowed pur- 
pose, but is continually admonishing us that to 
know God, to love, obey and enjoy Him is bet- 



124 THE BKIEF MENTION OF 

ter than the knowledge of material things. We 
learn this from the remarkable silence of the 
Bible as to scientific subjects, particularly from 
the wonderful conciseness in'its information about 
the stars, saying only that God made two great 
lights; "the stars also." 

Let any one ask himself whether we do not 
find in this reserve, a proof of a superior hand. 
This is not the manner of man. Human wisdom 
does not refuse to teach the things which men 
are most curious to know. It does not set science 
by lightty, when it seeks to instruct men in things 
pertaining to God. Therefore, if we believe this 
book to have been given by inspiration of God, 
we shall do well to follow the instruction afforded 
by its example of preferring the knowledge of 
God, especially to know his will, above every 
thing which science or literature can impart. 
While the desire for divine knowledge is not in- 
consistent with personal improvement, there are 
occasions, questions, which give opportunity to 
show that we are to consider this to be " Life 
eternal, to know Him, the true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom he has sent." 

Having considered that the brief way in which 
astronomy is treated in the Bible is a proof of its 
divine inspiration, we shall admit that 

11. While God says so little about 



ASTEOKOMY IK GENESIS. 125 

THE STAES, IT IS WONDEEFUL THAT He HAS 
SAID SO MUCH ABOUT MAN AND HUMAN AF- 
FAIES. 

One would think on reading the Bible only, 
that there is no other world than this under the 
care of the Almighty. 

While we can never cease to blame the persecu- 
tors of Galileo for not consenting to look through 
his telescope, we can account for the incredulity 
of many who would not believe his doctrine, 
from the fear which they probably had of losing 
their belief in the exclusive regard which the 
Most High seems in the Bible to feel for our 
earth. 

It was a satisfaction to think that this earth 
was the sole object of Jehovah's care as an in- 
habited sphere. The Bible, they thought, taught 
them so ; it would be a loss to their sense of im- 
portance, if Galileo could prove that there were 
other worlds ; for if like this in other respects, 
why might they not prove to be inhabited ; and 
if inhabited, what becomes of our Bible ? for the 
Bible made them feel that there could be no 
other world than this ; else how could the Al- 
mighty seem to bestow upon men such minute 
regard ? 

Whatever may be our speculations on this 
topic, no one can read the Bible and not be filled 



126 THE BEIEF MENTION OF 

■with amazement if he suffers himself to dwell 
upon the minute regard which God shows for in- 
dividual men and human affairs. Some illustra- 
tions will make this appear. 

There are places in the sacred -history which, 
no doubt, try the faith of every one who believes 
in God. I will refer to a passage in Exodus for 
an example. The God of the universe giving 
directions for making the tabernacle in the wilder- 
ness, is so minute as to describe how the candle- 
stick should be shaped, then ornamented. Not 
only so, he even speaks of the tongs ; then of 
the snuff-dishes. He who made the orbit of Ju- 
piter to be two hundred and seventy thousand 
miles, who had ordained Saturn to wander 
twenty-nine of our years before completing one 
revolution, the comet of 1843 to move at the rate 
of a million three hundred thousand miles in an 
hour, wrote in His book how the pins of the 
tabernacle should be fixed, what the loops, tas- 
sels, fringes should be, how much carved work 
should adorn the furniture. When we come to 
the sacrifices, there is anatomical minuteness ; 
mention is made of clean and unclean creatures 
as discriminately as w^ould be done by a natural- 
ist. The exact measures of flour and oil are 
given; parts of the animal are specified for use 
or to be rejected. 

It seems strange to notice the frequent use of 



ASTKONOIMY IN GENESIS. 127 

the expression in speaking of bullocks, rams, and 
kids, " a sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord." 
Can this be He who made " the stars also ? " Will 
He desio-nate the color of the skins to be used 
for the roof of the tabernacle in the wilderness ? 
And when He legislates, will He do anything 
more than ordain a nation, then leave it to rulers 
how to frame enactments ? 

We have a remarkable case in point. The 
daughters of Zelophehad came to Moses repre- 
senting that their father did not die in Korah's 
rebellion, but for his own sin; therefore they 
petitioned that the right of inheriteuce might 
be restored to them. What did Moses answer ? 
He told them to wait till he had referred the 
matter to the Almighty. Having laid the case 
before God, he received from Him an enactment 
that the females of a family might in certain 
cases inherit ! 

While God was ruling among those orbs which 
led Job to exclaim, "Is there an}^ number of His 
armies ? and on whom doth not His light arise," 
He bestowed as particular attention to the juris- 
prudence relating to family inheritances among 
this migratory people, as though they had been a 
constellation, or zone of the heavens. 

We are led to question whether the people of 
Galileo's time read their Bibles in a way to show 
that they were more noble than those of Thessa- 



128 THE BEIEF MENTION OF 

lonica in searching the Scriptures ; for thej could 
not have considered such revelations of the mi- 
nute attention of the Infinite God to individu- 
als, yet hesitate to look through a telescope from 
fear of seeing more worlds than they could be- 
lieve that the Almighty was able to comprehend 
in his regard. The New Testament takes up the 
subject. [f five sparrows were sold for two 
farthings in the Saviour's time, and not one of 
them was forgotten before God, all questions as 
to the doctrine of a particular providence, we 
would suppose, should cease in every mind which 
is willing to accept the God of the Bible. 
The smallest occasion may be great. A spider 
stretched his web across the entrance of the cave 
where Mahomet had secreted himself. The men 
in pursuit of him said : " He cannot have entered 
here ; for he would have brushed away the web 
on going in : there has not been time, since we 
knew he was on the road, for the spider to have 
done his work." They, therefore, passed on. 
Hence, Mohammedanism. 

We live under the government of a Being 
who, while He guides a comet in a sphere which 
a radius of hundreds of thousands of miles must 
be taken to describe, legislates about birds' nests ; 
rules in the armies of heaven, 3'et understands 
your thoughts afar off. " Behold ! God is great, 
and we know Him not : neither can the number 



ASTBONOMY IN GENESIS. 129 

of His years be searched out. For He maketh 
small the drops of water which the clouds do 
drop and distil upon man abundantly." " Also, 
can any understand the balancing of the clouds, 
— the wondrous work of Him who is perfect in 
knowledge ? " 

There cannot be greater happiness (we might 
infer from the light of nature, without the aid of 
personal experience) than to be on terms of per- 
sonal friendship with the Being who is at tlie 
same time swaying his sceptre over the universe, 
yet a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without 
Him. If God has kindled in our hearts love to 
them, He has done for us a greater act than for 
the heavenly bodies, none of which can hold com- 
munion Avith Him. It is better to be a Christian, 
though ignorant, than an undevout astronomer, 
though in possession of every secret in nature. 
God cares as little for the man who has mera 
knowledge, as we care for the ant whose hill of 
sand we perceive to be larger than that of his 
fellows. "Behold, He put no trust in His 
servants, and His augels He charged with folly." 
Knowledge involves no exercise of the will. 
Tiie human will is the seat of free agency, 
therefore, of moral character. One who has ex- 
ercised his will in owning allegiance to God has 
done tliat, though, in his knowledge, he be the 
least of all, which the man who is familiar with 



130 THE BRIEF MENTJON OF 

the laws of the heavenly bodies, but does not 
sphitually know God, lias failed to do. If God 
charges His angels with follj^, He cannot respect 
a man, whose wisdom a child or a fool can baffle 
by simple questions. When men die who were 
eminent only for learning, eloquence, statesman- 
ship, what value is placed on their learning, their 
eloquence, their statesmanship, among celestial 
inhabitants ? These things, which may have 
made them conspicuous here, in another world 
are like street-lamps left burning after sunrise. 
The humblest of the heavenly inhabitants could 
make an unregenerate man feel that, being ig- 
norant of spiritual things, he knows nothing. 
Had he known God, his eminent intellectual 
powers, of course, might have helped him greatly 
in his heavenly career. 

To man}^ of earth's wise men it must be said, 
hereafter, of the first principles of spiritual 
knowledge: "Art thou a master of Israel, and 
knowest not these things?" Let 'the young, 
who are ambitious of literary distinction, let all 
who are leaders among men in worldly knowl- 
edge, — remember that, to know God in the 
Scriptural sense of that expression, is the great- 
est attainment. We cannot know God but 
by loving Him, — which we may do by accept- 
ing Christ as our Redeemer. And he that lov- 
eth knoweth God ; for God is Love ! 



ASTRONOMY IN GENESIS. 131 

Again ; " He that loveth is born of God." 
Let any one consider what it must be to come 
into that relation with this Infinite Beino- which 
a child has to its father. Such a relation 
we have, when we begin to love God, and 
not before. One might appear before him with 
an exact description of the heavenly bodies ; but 
God could open before his eyes in a moment one 
of those nebulae which now puzzle the wisest 
astronomer, — thereby making his knowledge 
fgide before that superior light. Th-ere is no ex- 
hortation, therefore, more important than the 
one which Joshua gave Israel at the close of his 
life, — an exhortation worthy of the man who 
had been the conqueror of Canaan ; an exhorta- 
tion which even so great a warrior was not 
ashamed to make ; an exhortation never made 
b}^ Napoleon, nor b}^ a modern Field-Marshal to 
their troops : " Take good heed to yourselves 
that ye love the Lord your God." 

Think of Him who made the stars, causing to 
be prepared two tables of stone ; those fingers 
whose work the heavens had been, making He- 
brew letters, so becoming penman for the chil- 
dren of men. In which do we see most to adore ? 
That He made the planet Jupiter with his moons, 
together with Saturn and his belt, shining on the 
hill tops, into the valleys of the wilderness of 
Sinai ; or, that He who made Jupiter and Saturn 



132 THE BEIEF MENTION OF 

caused those tablets to be made, wrote tlie char- 
acters of a human alphabet with the same hand 
which drew the orbits for the comets, made laws 
for the heavenly bodies, ages before Kepler was 
born or man arose from the dust ; and when man 
had ruined himself by sin, wrote on stone for 
men to read, " Thou shalt have no other gods 
before me ? " 

One thing is a climax to all which has been 
said, being at once proved by it and proving it. 
Need I say it is the work of Redemption by 
Christ? Perhaps it has seemed to some too 
much to believe that God could condescend to 
this little earth, become flesh, and as God-man 
be a sacrifice for sins. But is there anything 
more condescending in Redemption than we find 
in the books of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and 
Deuteronomy ? If I can believe that the same 
God who made the stars made the laws, especi- 
all}^ the regulations in Leviticus, I can believe 
whatever the Bible may declare ; and can be- 
lieve it without demanding explanations ; I can 
accept any declaration concerning it, made by 
the condescending God. 

It was God manifest in the flesh who washed 
the feet of Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot. He 
who hung on the cross made the stars also ; " all 
things were created by him and for him-; with- 
out him was not anything made that w^as made." 



ASTRONOIVIY IN GENESIS. 133 

Whoever lives and dies insensible to all this, will 
have for his chief reflection hereafter, that the 
God who made the stars made him and redeemed 
him by giving Christ to die for him ; and all in 
vain. 

It should be to us a source of the richest 
pleasure in this world to believe. At every ex- 
perience of God's goodness to us we may say, 
'' He made the stars also ;" thus deepening our 
sense of his marvelous loving-kindness. It will 
seem to ennoble the future greatness of redemp- 
tion in each particular case for an angel in con- 
templating it to say, " He made the stars also." 
It will be a joy to have walked by faith in this- 
world with such a Bible ; we thus accomplish- 
ing, each of us, the great purpose of our redemp- 
tion, which is, to believe. Or, must we have 
every thing explained? Do we require the God 
who made the constellations to help us under- 
stand every thing before we receive it? Ex- 
cept we see in the Saviour's hand the print of 
the nails, and put our finger in the print of the 
nails, and thrust otir hand into his side, will we 
refuse to believe ? 

Simply refusing to believe God in the wil- 
derness, postponed the entrance of Israel into 
Caanan one generation, till the unbelievers had 
all perished. Inspiration speaks of them as car- 
cases ; " Whose carcases fell in the wilderness." 



134 THE BEIEF MENTION OP 

Unbelief is the great human sin. It will cost 
more people the loss of heaven than any other 
one thing. Christ himself is set to be with every 
man a corner stone, or a stone of stumbling. 
We should never ask, Do you believe our heav- 
enly Father would do thus and thus ? but we 
should ask. Has He done it ? Does the Bible de- 
clare it? Then implicitly believe, nor make 
your intellectual apprehensions nor your moral 
sentiments the rule for the divine proceedings. 

When a discoverer or thinker embraces a 
theory which conflicts with revelation, we should 
class it at once with " science, falsely so called." 
We are prone to exalt our wisdom above inspi- 
ration. If men would remember of how little 
importance they are in themselves, and that it is 
infinite condescension in God to ask for their 
love ; if they would ponder that question of the 
inspired words, " Is it gain to the Almight}^ that 
thou makest thy way perfect ? will he reprove 
thee for fear of thee ? will he enter with thee 
into judgment," the exhortations of the Gospel 
would not make us think, as perhaps they do, that 
God solicits our love for benefit to himself. 

He who made the stars also, made us, a little 
lower than the angels, and crowned us with glory 
and honor. This God, the Father, the Son and 
the Holy Ghost, made us and redeemed us by 
the sacrifice of the Son in the flesh. He offers 



ASTRONOMY IN GENESIS. 135 

to sanctify our natures by the Holy Ghost, the 
third person of this adorable Trinity. Will any 
one of us fail of so great salvation ? " Where- 
fore, as the Holy Ghost saith, To day, if ye will 
hear his voice, harden not your hearts." 



VIII. 

EMULATION IN EEAVEN AMONa THE 
REDEEMED. 

" This Is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." — i Timothy 
i: 15. 

If there is anything like emulation among the 
redeemed in heaven, we may suppose that it is 
of a kind unknown on earth. It was written 
loDg ago by a good man, that if certain men 
should enter heaven as they now are, their great 
surprise would be not to find angels laying 
schemes to make themselves archangels. Per- 
haps these words of Paul in the text, express 
the chief subject of emulation among the re- 
deemed, " sinners, — of whom I am chief." 
With them it ma}^ be, that emulation consists in 
harmonious strife to settle among themselves who 
of them were chief sinners, and are now chief 
debtors to the grace of God. 

It would not be easy for any of us to conceive 
(136) 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 137 

of such emulation, unless we have already come 
to the deliberate opinion, that anything which 
we can experience short of hell is to us mercy. 

Who will probably seem in heaven to have 
the highest claim as the chief of sinners, to be 
greatest debtors to infinite grace ? 

Let us suppose the inhabitants of heaven from 
among men engaged in this rivalry, pleading each 
his claim of owing most to divine mercy. We 
will judge between them in this harmonious 
strife. 

I. The Apostle Paul fiest beings foe- 

WAED HIS CLAIM. 

• 

" I persecuted the Church of God. That in- 
fant church, the fruit of a Saviour's tears and 
blood was my prey. I hated it with implacable 
hatred. I went into houses and dragged Chris- 
tians to prison. Neither age nor sex found 
mercy at my hands. 

" Being exceedingly mad against them I com- 
pelled some of them to blaspheme. I saw their 
agony with heartfelt satisfaction. Around you 
in the heavenly company are the witnesses 
of my crimes. Behold the spirits of those whom 
I persecuted even to death. They came out of 
great tribulation, inflicted on them by me. 

" The most affecting thing in my heavenly his- 



138 EMULATION IK HEAVEN 

toiy, was my first interview with tlie martyr 
Stephen. When I saw him last on earth, he was 
kneeling to receive the stones from the murder- 
ers hands, and I was consenting unto his death, 
and kept the raiment of them that slew him. I 
did it not from love of pain and blood, but as a 
religious duty. Little did I ever think of meet- 
ing him in heaven ; but his must have been the 
greater surprise to meet me here, though with 
his last breath he prayed for me : ' Lord, lay 
not this sin to their charge.' His blood infuri- 
ated me with more zeal for Christian blood. 

" On my way to Damascus with full authority 
to bind, imprison and kill every Christian, He 
who loved me and gave himself for me, appeared 
and sx3ake to me, and in a tone of mingled re- 
monstrance and pity, said, ' Saul, Saul, why 
persecutest thou me ? ' When he might have 
consumed me with his lightnings, he spoke to me 
with gentle upbraiding. He could have suffered 
me to go on and fill up the measure of my ini- 
quity, and be the most guilty spirit in hell ; in- 
stead of which he has made me,^s you will all 
acknowledge, chief debtor to his love. 

" In contrast with my former life of blood, see 
what he permitted me to do. When it pleased 
God who separated me from my birth, to reveal 
his Son in me, forthwith I became a preacher 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 139 

and an Apostle to the Gentiles. I preached to 
the nations who had never known Him, the un- 
searchable riches of Christ. I was permitted to 
write a large part of the New Testament to be 
the guide of thousands of generations to heaven. 
I was permitted for Christ's sake to be in dangers 
more abundant than all my companions, in stripes 
above measure, in prisons more frequent, in 
deaths oft. 

" I appeal to what I once was, and what I was 
permitted to do ; to what I was by the grace of 
God, and to my present bliss in looking upon 
millions who by my influence were brought to 
heaven, if I was not in the first place the chief 
of sinners ; if I am not now the greatest debtor 
to the grace of God." 

II. Our attention is now demanded by a small 
company of men who cannot admit the claims of 
their beloved brother Paul, to be a greater sin- 
ner and a greater debtor to mercy than they. 
They are The Crucifiees of Christ, whom 
we will suppose to have been converted at the 
day of Pentecost. 

"Is it possible," they say, "that blood can 
fall with so deep a stain on a murderer's Ijand 
as the blood of the Son of God ? " " With my 
hands," says one of them, " the crown of thorns 



140 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

was forced upon his head." " But I bound his 
hands." says another. " I scourged him," says 
another. " I drove the nails into his hands and 
feet." " I am the Centurion who thrust the 
spear into his side." " It is a great crime to have 
been the means of death to a good man ; but to 
have killed the Prince of Life, to have been the 
betrayers and murderers of the Son of God, is 
the chief transgression. Better to have been 
the murderers of the universal Church than to 
have platted a thorn of the Saviour's crown, to 
have driven one nail into that mysterious flesh 
of the God-man. Why did not the graves re- 
lease their dead and swallow us up ? Why did 
not the rocks of Calvary crush our bodies, and 
the darkness of the ninth hour leave us in ever- 
lasting chains under darkness unto the judgment 
of the great day ? 

" Instead of this, the Saviour sent his Apostles 
first of all to us; — 'beginning at Jerusalem,' 
he said, ' with offers of pardon through my 
blood.' On us was the first descent of the 
Holy Spirit, at Pentecost ; we were the early 
fruits of the harvest from that corn of wheat 
which on Calvary fell into the ground and died. 

" If any guilt surpasses ours, declare it ; men- 
tion one thing which surpasses this : ' and killed 
the Prince of Life.' Tell us, if 3^ou can, who 
OAves more to divine forbearance than we. The 



AMONG THE REDEEMED. 141 

guilt of the Apostle Paul, — it sinks into insig- 
nificance by the side of ours. Never did he 
know such sensations, not even in his meeting 
with the martyr Stephen, as we had, when we 
first looked upon the face of our Redeemer in 
heaven. ' When we last saw thee,' we said, ' we 
were nailing thee to the accursed tree ; ' but ere 
we could repeat our thanks for pardon, we were 
filled wdth full assurance of his love. We walk 
these golden streets, we range these heavenly 
fields, and talk of Calvary with feelings un- 
known to all the heavenly host. If any are to 
be recognized here as chief sinners on earth and 
chief debtors to the grace of God, they must be 
The crucifiers of Christ." 

III. "Give room," says a company of shin- 
ing ones, whom we recognize as A Band of 

ONCE HEATHEN CHIEFS AND WAEEIOKS. 

" We shall conclude this contest by our re- 
hearsal. We were the Gentiles that knew not 
God. We worshipped the devil, and faithful 
subjects we were to our lord. No souls went 
lower than we in degradation ; no vices, no 
crimes were too abominable for us. Some of u*s 
Were worshipped as gods ; on our altars human 
victims bled and burned. Tribes fell by tribes 
into our hands, and we were following them down 
to darkness and the pit. The Son of God sent 



142 ejMulation in heaven 

missionaries to our islands ; they told us about 
the true God; of the Sacrifice for our sins; of 
pardon, regeneration, holiness, heaven. Then we 
were washed, justified, sanctified, by the renew- 
ing of the Holy Ghost. God never found souls 
lower in guilt than we ; of course, none were 
ever raised so far by divine grace. 

" Here is the martyr of Raratonga, whom we 
slew, the missionary John Williams ; but instead 
of Christians sending fleets to destroy us, the 
children of Great Britain sent a missionary 
packet to our shores and her name was, ' John 
Williams ;' as though they would heap coals of 
fire on our heads ; and the children of America 
sent the Morning Star with Bibles, to which they 
told us we should do well to take heed until the 
day dawned, and the day-star should arise in our 
hearts. In all this we saw the hand, we felt the 
heart, of God ; this was the Gospel of peace ; it 
melted our hearts ; we were led captive by 
mercy. We almost question the claim of angels 
to the highest tokens of the love of God. At 
least we can say, if they are the height, we are 
the depth, of the love of God ; and it was more 
for that love to reach down to us than up to 
them. 

" What unmerited love, to find us out in our 
islands, and bring salvation to us ! True, we can 
speak of no striking exhibition of God's power 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 143 

that is uncommon, in the conversion of sinners, 
like that which Paul experienced, and our breth- 
ren at Pentecost. But we were the lost sheep 
in the wilderness of ocean : the Good Shepherd 
found us, and brought us liome to His fold. We 
cannot 3deld to any who have yet spoken, in our 
conviction that we were the greatest sinners, be- 
cause our guilt was sickening : we were more 
than brutal ; we had the instincts of brutes, and 
the passions of animals. Hideous, loathsome, 
fiendish, as w^e were, we are now companions 
with the saints in light. If the contrast of the 
heavenly with the earthly condition may enter 
into the account, whose robes seem to them so 
resplendent as ours? And if distance from God 
enhances the love which brings back the lost, 
give us the joy of confessing that we are debt- 
ors to His mercy more than you all." 

IV. Before the eyes of the assembled multi- 
tude appears a company who represent The 
Childeen of Heaven. Peculiar beauty 
dwells in their faces and forms ; immortal youth 
breathes from their looks and motions. The at- 
tention of the multitude is chained while they 
thus proceed : — 

" We represent the innumerable host of spir- 
its who came to heaven in infancy ; we are from 
every tribe under heaven. There was not one 



144 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

of all tlie tribes of men who did not send some 
infants to heaven. Some of us were murdered 
by our parents as soon as we were born. Each 
heathen river, each island shore, is the burj^jiig- 
place of our bodies. Among us is the companj^ 
of those who were slain by Herod, — martyrs 
for the Child Jesus, — and those who have per- 
ished by the- wars, famines, and diseases which 
have swept the earth. With us are the children 
of Christian families, baptized in Christian tem- 
ples or homes, buried amid broken hearts, but 
waiting with surprising beauty and glory to wel- 
come pious parents hither. Do you speak of the 
grace of God? If grace consists in the absence 
of all merit, who are debtors at all to divine 
grace compared with us ? We did not even be- 
lieve on Christ, — for we never knew him ; but, 
being involved in the first father's transgression, 
without opportunity of repentance and faith in 
the Saviour, we were included in the free gift : 
salvation was bestowed on us, who never sought 
it. Consider, too, the goodness of God, in our 
early death. If those of us who were born in 
heathenism had lived to manhood, we should 
have perished in our sins ; but God removed us 
from such exposure, to heaven. Some of us, 
though born in Christian lands, were the chil- 
dren of irreligious parents, whose example and 
influences, if we had lived, might have prevented 



AMONG THE REDEEMED. 145 

our salvation. Look at some of our homes, — 
our parents and all our brothers and sisters un- 
converted ! See what peril we have escaped, by 
the merciful hand of death ! God in His good- 
ness interposed to save us. He has made our 
death, in many instances, the means of the con- 
version of parents. Such joy as we behold in 
the recognition of a glorified child by the parents 
as they enter heaven, we cannot utter : angels 
cannot witness it without emotion. We have 
seen fathers and mothers meeting the children 
who died in infaiicy, and left their parents with- 
out hope ; and God sanctified the affliction, and 
the parents ascribe their salvation and eternal 
union with their children in heaven, to the re- 
moval of the children by an early death. Those 
of us whose parents lived and died impenitent, 
and are lost, though the first budding instinct of 
filial affection remained in our hearts, and made 
us hope to meet our parents here, nevertheless, 
are made to see what a mercy it is that God 
snatched us away from an irreligious, prayerless 
influence, and saved us. Why did He not leave 
us to perish with our parents ? Because He set 
His love upon us, therefore did He deliver us ; 
and our rescue from such imminent danger and 
the peculiar love of God in our early death 
bids us not to weep for those who would have 
destroyed us by their influence, if God had not 



146 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

interposed to save us. God and heaven are our 
father and mother, sister and brother. ' O 
Death ! where is thy sting ? ' The monster 
Death was the means of our salvation. ' O grave ! 
where is thy victory ? ' Our graves received our 
bodies each for safe-keeping against the resur- 
rection of the just, and the strange union of soul 
and body, of which we have no remembrance, 
and can form no conception, is to be ours, with 
sensations of pleasure unknown to the rest of the 
rising dead. Though every saint will have im- 
mortal youth, our youth will have in it some- 
thing peculiar; for the only homes, the only 
scenes of childhood, which we can remember, are 
are those of heaven. We were children in 
heaven; and through eternity the vivid recollec- 
tions of the first impressions made upon our 
opening minds by the scenes of heaven will make 
our whole being an eternal morning. We were 
never conscious of sinning against God. Had 
we lived, we should have had consciousness of 
sin. We never rejected the Saviour, or cruci- 
fied Him afresh, or grieved the Holy Spirit of 
God ; and it is the subject of our grateful praise 
that by death God prevented us from so doing, 
and, instead of letting us spend years in sin, 
gave us those years in the purity of heaven. 
Adore with us that grace which selected us from 
a ruined world, and saved us of its own accord, 



AMONG THE REDEEMED. 147 

when we were unconscious of it. You all seem 
to have had grace bestowed on you ; but we are, 
as it were, grace itself. Boasting is, indeed, ex* 
eluded from any share in our salvation. Grace, 
grace in us is all in all." 

V. There follows these words, from the army 
of children in heaven, — a deep, rich song, its 
joy mingled with pensive strains, from a host 
whose feelings burst forth in notes of praise 
whenever the grace of God is mentioned in their 
hearing. They are The Conyehts of Chris- 
tian CCNGREOATIONS. Most of them declare 
that their Christian privileges and their long re- 
sistance of God's call and His forbearance with 
them under their great guilt, make them the 
chief debtors to divine grace. " What is the 
guilt of Paul," they say, " who did not sin un- 
der the clear strivings of the Divine Spirit, but 
ignorantl}', in unbelief? What is the guilt of 
the crucifiers of Christ, and of barbarians, who 
did not enjoy the teachings of that Spirit? 
What are the obligations of the children, com- 
pared with ours, when you think that we were 
saved, not only without merit, but against infin-* 
ite demerit ? Was not blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost the unpardonable sin ? Does it not 
follow that any sins against the Holy Spirit are 
greater than others, — because, to sin against 



148 EIVIULATIOX ET HEAYEN 

right and conviction constitutes the most inex- 
cusable sin? We had the whole Bible from 
childhood, and Sabbaths and sanctuaries, and 
with us the Holy Spirit earl}^ began to strive. 
But for a long time we grieved him every day, 
We despised his warnings, turned away from the 
Gospel, walked after our own hearts: one j^ear 
after another ended, and left us without God. 
With a full impression of what we ought to do, 
we refused to do it. Should not the servant 
who knew his Lord's will, and did it not, be 
beaten with many stripes? Who of all this 
heavenly company, professing to have been the 
chief of sinners, knew their Lord's will so well 
as ' we ? Think of us as members of Bible- 
classes, studying the Word of God, knowing it 
by heart, hearing earnest, affectionate appeals- 
from our teachers and companions, — yet resist- 
ing all. 

" In yonder world of punishment, there are 
none who suffer so much from conscience as those 
who died under the preaching of the Gospel, and 
now remember the awakenings, the convictions, 
the sermons, the solemn scenes of religious inter- 
est, — the times when they were 'almost per- 
suaded.' Souls who went from the sight of the 
Lord's table to lie down in sorrow, have no 
keener anguish than when they recall that table 
as it stood in the house of God, — its white 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 149 

cloth, its silver flagon and cup, the bread ready 
to be broken, the looks and words of the pastor, 
repeating the invitation of Jesus, ' This do in re- 
membrance of me ; ' and then the dividing as- 
sembly, — such an emblem of the separations at 
the last day ! Now, had we, with all our culti- 
vation of minds, our enlightened consciences 
our memories stored with Scripture and hymns 
— had we perished, you all admit that no souls 
in hell would be so tormented as we. For us to 
Lave lost heaven and to have spent eternity with 
the wicked, would have been the severest suffer- 
ing which God can inflict. Some who worship- 
ped with us, and sang out of the same book now 
suffer it. How near we came to the brink of 
ruin ! Our feet had well-nigh slipped. The 
centuries of our heavenly life have not abated 
our astonisliment at being saved. We find our- 
selves, often repeating that inspired description 
of ourselves, — ' For we ourselves also were 
sometimes foolish, disobedient, serving divers 
lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, 
hateful and hating one another.' It is our de- 
liberate opinion that the greatest sinners and 
the greatest debtors to the grace of God are to 
be found among members of Christian Congre- 
gations." 

The controversy might be prolonged ; it doubt- 
less is. May we hear it forever ! 



150 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

If asked now what our judgment is, in view 
of this friendly contest in heaven for the chief 
place as debtor to the grace of God, could we 
hesitate for a reply? When we think of the 
criminality of rejecting, of simply neglecting 
Jesus Christ, under all the influences of educa- 
tion, of Christian example, of persuasion, of pro- 
vidence, of death, of conscience enlightened by 
the Bible and illuminated by the suggestions of 
the sanctuary, beginning with childhood, extend- 
ing through mature years, and in some cases to 
old age, of living under the persuasive influen- 
ces of the Christian religion ; sacraments, pro- 
vidences, the Holy Spirit, prayer, special bless- 
ings; the rich gifts of an all-bounteous loving 
kindness and tender mercy ; and then when we 
consider what we should have suffered had we 
perished under these influences, what our reflec- 
tions would have been, what an eternit}^, ours, 
with all our knowledge, opportunities, — and 
heaven lost ! forever lost ! Tell us, ye who fell 
from heaven, would not our loss of heaven have 
been greater to us than it would have been to 
any others of the children of men? 

This question, my hearers, may none of us have 
occasion to ponder when it is forever too late for 
the consideration of it to be of any avail. 

Some of the most amiable of this congregation 
in the esteem of their fellow men, might be told 



AMONG THE REDEEMED. 151 

by their Judge, " It shall be more tolerable for 
Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for 
you." None have more occasion than you who 
have enjoyed the privileges of the sanctuary to 
say, " How shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation ! " Let me then strive to impress 
these few truths upon you by the help of this 
subject. 

I. Of all the titles of Christ this holds the 
chief place, Saviour of Sinners. 

The Apostle Paul tells us, assuredly true and 
worthy of the fullest acceptance is this, that 
" Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
ners." 

The full acceptance of this truth will put an 
end to the idea, that Christ's mission was one of 
philanthropy ; that he was a great reformer ; that 
human salvation is merely development. 

He came into the world to save sinners. Ev- 
ery thing else, civilization, science, culture, arts, 
social human happiness, is each a fruit of redemp- 
tion and of pardon. Other blessings are merely 
the things, which Robert Hall says, " Christian- 
ity scatters about her profusely on her sublime 
march to immortality." 

But the great work of Christ is to save sin- 
ners. If you are a sinner, you are an object of 
redeeming grace ; if you are not a sinner in need 



152 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

of an infinite atonement, you may, indeed, 
gather many of the scattered blessings of Chris- 
tianity ; but you will at the most, only eat of the 
crumbs which fall from the Master's table. 

But believe and feel yourself to be, in view of 
your privileges, one of the chief debtors to the 
grace of God, and you will be a rival with Paul 
for the distinction. There probably is not a bet- 
ter unconverted man among us, than the young 
man at the feet of Gamaliel. Many a virtuous 
man, many an estimable woman, has feelings to- 
wards evangelical religion which compare well 
with those which Saul of Tarsus had towards 
Stephen. They would be willing to keep the 
raiment of those who would stone it. 

It is to be doubted if Saul was more conscien- 
tious than some people among us are, in their 
strong dislike of the doctrines of the cross. 
"And such were some of j^ou, but ye are 
washed ;" and have taken place with the claim- 
ants for the largest indebtedness to divine grace. 

It is plain from what has been said, 

"Secondly, that notJdng on earth is more unliTce 
the spirit of heaven than a self-justifying spirit. 

Some of our friends say, " I am no worse than 
others ; I shall fare as well as others ; I have 
suffered enough here without suffering hereaf- 



A^iONG THE eedee:med. 153 

ter ; God will not punish me for a few sins ; I 
am less guilty than some who profess more than 
I." 

If this be our spirit we may be sure that we 
have no inheritance with the company of heaven. 
The spirit of heaven is a humble self-condemn- 
ing spirit. The language of heaven is, " Unto 
him that loved us and washed us from our sins 
in his blood." 

It appears from our subject, 

Thirdly, The greatness of guilt may he a ground 

of liojpe rather than of despair. 

Some of the greatest sinners on earth will be 
in heaven ; indeed we may say that if there be 
one whose guilt we are ready to feel, is unpar- 
alleled, we may have hope that heaven will con- 
tain him when they bring the glory and honor of 
the nations into it ; the greatest glory and honor 
will be penitent thieves, the woman who was a 
sinner, and Saul of Tarsus. 

Has any one here been a great transgressor ? 
"P^ill 3^ou have uncommon happiness in heaven ? 
Will you be a conspicuous monument of the 
grace of God ? To find great sinners, those 
whom God adjudges to be such, we would not 
probably be sent to the haunts of vice, to the 
ignorant, the neglected, or even the abandoned ; 



154 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

but perhaps to the house of God where some, 
exalted to heaven in their opportunities of know- 
ing God and their duty, are in their hearts without 
God. They probably would have more to reflect 
upon if lost, than any; and, if saved, will not 
admit that any deserved it less than they. 

There are among us those who are ready to 
dispute with Paul Iris claim to be the chief debtor 
to the grace of God. Should opportunity be 
given, some would humbly but earnestly declare 
that they would not admit that there is a soul 
on earth or in heaven who has greater reason than 
they to adore the grace of God, or one who 
owed more to divine forbearance, long-suffering, 
gentleness and compassion. 

We are each destined to spend eternity in re- 
viewing life ; and unquestionably the most ab- 
sorbing object of our thoughts will.be Jesus 
Christ : and the theme on which we shall chiefly 
dwell will be that " Jesus Chiist came into the 
world to save sinners." But it may prove to be 
the case that some one of us will have occasion 
to say. No one has lost more in losing heaven 
than I ; no one lost it for less than I ; so that of 
all who have occasion to weep and wail, I am 
chief. 

No doubt every one of you will have occasion 
in heaven or hell either to claim that he is chief 
debtor to the grace of God, or that he is of all 
men most miserable. 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 155 

You will say, Who had more to enlighten, re- 
strain, subdue, in parentage, religious instructions, 
warnings, escapes from destruction, recoveries 
from sickness, the death of companions, awaken- 
ings, forgivenesses, answers to prayer when on 
the brink of destruction. " As for me, my feet 
were almost gone, my steps' had well nigh slip- 
ped." Many and many a time there was but a 
step between me and death. How I abused the 
mercy of God, how defiant I was to his threat- 
enings, hov/ insensible to sparing mercy ; I feel 
willing to contest with any sinner from earth his 
claim as owing most to the grace of God. I 
would demand of him to prove, if he could, that 
there was more long-suffering, gentleness, unde- 
served mercy in his case than mine. 

Others may be heard to say, Come and see 
if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow. 
To whom of you, companions in misery, is 
heaven more of a loss than to me ? Who of you 
came nearer to being saved. Who had more done 
to save him ? Who gave up heaven for less than 
I ? To whom is the company of the lost more 
distressing than to me ? Is there any sorrow 
like unto my sorrow ? 

And so forever and ever, succeeding ages will 
but repeat our assertion, that no one owes more 
than each of us to the grace which bringeth sal- 
vation ; or has more occasion to lift up his voice 



156 EMULATION IN HEAVEN 

in loudest lamentations. And all this in conse- 
quence of one act of accepting or neglecting the 
great salvation. One single submission to the 
call of God, or one refusal to accept his offers, 
will be the decisive act which will determine 
whether we spend eternity claiming to be chief 
debtor to the grace of God, or chief debtor to 
His avenging law and neglected gospel. It is 
indeed a solemn thing to die, but is it not 
a more solemn thing to live under such lia- 
bilities ? I would not close my eyes in sleep till 
I had committed my soul to those hands which 
on the cross had on one side the impenitent 
thief and on the other the penitent thief, Jesus 
in the midst, proclaiming as it does to all men 
their danger and their only refuge. Some 
stand on slippery places. " Their feet shall 
slide in due time." No one has listened to 
the voice of merey but will see the time when 
he will say as Bradford tlie martyr once did 
when he looked on a felon going to execution, 
" There, but for the grace of God goes John 
Bradford ;" or who would not be willing to ex- 
change his conscience for that of the felon; sup- 
posing, in the greatest of his agony, that any 
and every burden must be lighter than his. 

Therefore, " Escape for thy life; neither stay 
thou in all the plain, escape to the mountain, lest 
thou be consumed." Come, take up this moment 



AMONG THE EEDEEMED. 157 

the endless song of praise to divine grace ! Enter 
the lists of competitors for the chief crown 
which shall be cast at the feet of your Re- 
deemer I 

" We, then, as workers together with Him, be- 
seech you that ye receive not the grace of God 
in vain. For He saith, I have heard thee in an 
accepted time and in the day of salvation have 
I succored thee ; behold, now is the accepted 
time, behold now is the day of salvation." 



IX. 



THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU TO THE 
DESPONDENT 

" Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before 
him ; therefore trust thou in him." — Job 35 : 14. 

THERE is no word whicli the worshippers 
of God need to have whispered to their 
hearts more frequently than this : " Trust thou 
in Him." 

We are in a world and under a system of 
events wonderfully adapted to try our faith. 
We have reason to think that angels look with 
astonishment when they see one who is in great 
affliction trusting in God. Angels can trust in 
Him without effort. Indeed what would become 
of them at times when they see His great judg- 
ments, if they could not? They see more that 
calls for faith than we : for they not only wit- 
ness, but are called to execute His dark designs. 
They never start back from fulfilling His com- 
(158) 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 159 

mands, saying, Tliis is too dreadful. But let us 
hear wliat they say : " And the third angel 
poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains 
of v^^aters, and thej^ became blood." " And I 
heard the angel of the waters sa}^, Thou art 
righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shalt 
be, because Thou hast judged thus." "And I 
heard another angel out of the altar say, Even 
so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are 
Thy judgments." 

Seeing so many of the terrible acts of the Al- 
mighty, perhaps it is well for them that they are 
not required to walk by faith ; so that without 
question they look on us under great bereave- 
ments in this dark world, and say, " What 
should we do if we had to suffer thus and knew 
no more than they ? " So when they see one be- 
reft of a child, for example, under circumstances 
peculiarly trying, perhaps following the loss of a 
companion, or of one child after another, till at 
length the last coal is quenched, no doubt the}^ 
saj', "Earth is indeed a spectacle to us angels." 

While we wonder how angels endure such 
revelations as God makes to them, they wonder 
how Christians endure such mysterious chastise- 
ments. It is easy for pvUgels to love God ; they 
always did ; there is nothing in His works and 
ways to baffle their trust, nothing in themselves 
to call in question His justice: to make them 



160 THE COUNSEL OP ELIHU 

doubt His goodness. So when they see us en- 
during sharp trials not only with long-suffering, 
but joj'f all}', they do not question the truth which 
they often hear from our pulpits, that there is 
more that is wonderful in the faith of some 
Christians than in the obedience of the angels. 
Our faith also fills them with astonishment 
because it is not universal among men. They 
see many nominal Christians who have very lit- 
tle ; some have none at all. I was once called to 
minister consolation to a mother who had lost a 
child under trying circumstances. She replied 
thus to my remarks : "I cannot see why God 
should afflict me so ; my sister has brought up a 
large family of children, nor lost one ; and here 
my only daughter who would have been such a 
comfort to me, is snatched away." Angels 
took no pleasure in her faith ; and now twenty- 
five years from that time she herself is wast- 
ing away, having no hope, and without God 
in the world. In contrast, they did take pleas- 
ure in a bereaved mother who anticipated all 
which I was ready to say to her, by exclaiming, 
" Can you tell me why this affliction makes me 
love God so ? " Said J, " perhaps you have 
learned to say with the Psalmist, ' Whom have 
I in heaven but thee ! and there is none on earth 
that I desire besides thee.' " — Consider 

I. If without eaith it is impossible to 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 161 

PLEASE God, we INIIGHT infer that FAITH IS 
EMINENTLY PLEASING. 

If faith, sucli as I have mentioned, makes an- 
gels wonder as they see it in the clouds and 
darkness under which we suffer, there can be no 
question that God himself is pleased with it. For 
you have time and again noticed in the New 
Testament, that Christ was more pleased with 
faith than anything else. Once he said, " O 
woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee, even 
as thou wilt ! " At another time, he turned from 
a suppliant and saii to the people ; " Verily, I 
have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel ! " 

There is in Scripture no list of those who dis- 
tinguisTied themselves for zeal, or humility, or 
hope ; but the eleventh of Hebrews emblazons 
the names of men and women who through faith 
did marvellous things. God made Abraham the 
heir of the greatest blessings for his faith. Faith 
is the crowning glory of the Christian character. 
Faith in Christ saves the soul. The trial of it 
is said to be much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth ; it is to be found unto praise and 
honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ. 

Such being the distinguishing glory of trust- 
ing in God in this distant dark world, it so ex- 
cites the wonder of angels, and commands the 



162 THE COUNSEL OP ELIHU 

approbation of God himself, we shall do well 
to make it our study to live a life of faith. Every 
one has abundant opportunity to practise it. 
Could the secrets of our hearts be unfolded, we 
should find that every one is ready to confess 
that he needs nothing so much as trust in God. 

II. A PEIKCrPAL DESIGN OF THE OlD TeS- 
TA^IENT IS TO TEACH US FAITH. 

We have before us in the book from which 
the text is taken, a wonderful illustration of our 
subject. The oldest of all writings is the book 
of Job. It is marvellous to see what the subject 
of it is ; how God began to teach the children of 
men. Wise men among us would, perhaps, have 
prescribed that the oldest record in the Book of 
God should be a plain statement of truths relat- 
ing to science, when and how the world was 
made ; how many worlds were created at once ; 
were they peopled? tlie number, character, em- 
ployments of their inhabitants. Instead of these 
things, the subject chosen is a man reduced from 
affluance to abject poverty, loathsome disease, 
excruciating pain. The devil is allowed to ex- 
periment with him by bereaving him, by torment- 
ing him, by setting against him all his friends, 
some of them good men. His wife conjures him 
to abandon his confidence in the Almighty: 
" curse God and die ! " 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 163 

The Scripture says : " Ye have heard of the 
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the 
Lord, how that the Lord is very pitiful and of 
tender merc3^" We are bold to say, that God 
meant to teach mankind by the first writing 
which He has communicated to us, that the great 
business of man in this world is to trust God ; 
that He does this by opening first before the 
eyes of men, not the book of Proverbs, not the 
book of Ecclesiastes, not the Psalms, not the story 
of creation, but the duty of implicit trust in God. 
As an example. He gives us a rich man, the 
greatest of all the men of the East, stripped at 
once of every thing, sitting down in the ashes, 
scraping himself wdth a piece of potsherd, yet 
giving the sacred historian occasion to say, " In 
all this Job sinned not, nor charged God fool- 
ishly." 

There came three men to talk with him ; they 
intended to teach him, as we all think that we 
know so well, perhaps, how to do when we see 
others in trouble. Among the wonders of in- 
spiration I know of nothing more remarkable 
than this, (and it may be accounted one of the 
chief proofs of the inspiration of the Bible), 
that Avhile these three friends of Job were 
wholly mistaken in tlieir judgment of him, .and 
said many things Avliich were wholly wrong as 
applied to Job, so that God was angry with 



164 THE COUKSEL OF ELIHU 

them, yet not one word did they say which in 
its general application is not true. So that a 
minister can take a passage from any part of their 
speeches for a text and preach from it as the 
word of God. 

The Homers and Miltons "pale their ineffec- 
tual fires " in comparison with this first poem, 
this master-piece of wisdom, ingenuity, wisdom., 
eloquence, religion ; three men talking wrong- 
fully, so that they moved the wrath of God against 
them ; for He said to Eliphaz, seemingly the 
best of the- three, " My wrath is kindled against 
thee and against thy two friends ; for ye have 
not spoken of me the thing that is right as my 
servant Job Iiath ; " yet neither of them saying 
one word which in itself and by itself, and with 
a right application, was unsuitable to be recorded 
in the Bible. 

Let the students of language, proficients in 
logic, rhetoric, eloquence^ come and see this 
great sight, and acknowledge that the Book of 
Job must have been inspired to have accomp- 
lished this unparalleled feat of wisdom ; and if 
this one book is inspired, why not all the rest 
from the same hand, bearing the same seal of the 
apostles and of Christ ? 

Our text is both an example and illustration 
of what I have now said. No wonder that it 
made God angry to hear those good but mistaken 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 165 

men sa}^ to Job, " Acquaint now thyself with 
Him and be at peace;" — a man who probably 
knew more of God than they. Yet that pas- 
sage is a truthful, a beautiful word. So is the 
text. Very little did Job need such an exhor- 
tation ; but we all need it, and by divine help 
we will profit by it. 

III. The counsel of Elihtj in the text 

IS PROFITABLE TO A SINKING HEART. 

" Although thou sayest thou shalt not see 
Him." If Job did not say this, perhaps we do ; 
and we are grateful for this counsel. Job said, 
"He knoweth the way that I take ; when He 
hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." The 
meaning of the text is, "Although you say you 
will never see Him appear for you, yet He will 
exercise judgment when to do so ; therefore trust 
thou in Him." 

There are times, we have all seen them, we 
may be seeing them now, when a dark provi- 
dence has settled down like a cloud on our pros- 
pect. Something has happened which is the very 
worst thing which it seems to us God could have 
chosen wherewith to afflict us. There is no ex- 
planation ; there is no mitigation, no cheerful 
outlook ; all is dark, bewildering ; the wisest 
thing which our best friends can do is to keep- 
silence ; they are mistaken if they tell us not to 



166 THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU 

weep ; only He who can touch the bier and raise 
the dead can properly say, " Weep not." " Je- 
sus wept ; " it was a relief to Him ; it is to us. 
Nature finds comfort in cries, groans, tears ; but 
still we sa}^, " All is in vain;" and as Job said, 
" Though I speak, mj^ grief is not assuaged ; and 
though I forbear, yet what am I eased ? " We 
sa}^, " It is impossible not to weep ; shall the dead 
be raised ? can the past be recalled ; can the bit- 
terness of this affliction be soon taken away ? 
Stern, inexorable providence has done what Job 
said God had done to him. ' He hath compas- 
sed my way with hewn stone ; ' not with lieaps 
of stones, but each one cut, ' taken out of wind,' 
mortised, set up with plumb and level, all de- 
signed, a perfect piece of work, built so as ex- 
actly to confound me. There is no use in argu- 
ment ; all is hopeless ; God was my friend once ; 
now He has set me up as His mark. ' The ar- 
rows of the Almighty are within me, the poison 
whereof drinketh up my spirit.' " 

To such afflicted souls the Word of God says, 
" Although thou sayest thou shalt not see Him, 
yet judgment is before Him." You think that 
you will never. see His design to accomplish good 
in you and by you in this affliction. It seems to 
you without plan, confused, reckless. God seems 
to have let chaos overspread you ; infinite wis- 
dom does not appctir to have had any thing to do 



TO THE DESPONDENT. . 167 

with the events which have befallen 5^011. To 
gather up the thread of your broken history 
hereafter, seems to you as impossible as it would 
to pick out your carriage-track from the multi- 
tude of tracks which fill the streets of a city. 
Even if it were not so, we learn from the inferior 
creatures that animal instinct is capable of scent- 
ing a track even more confused. You have seen 
an animal that has lost his master, finding his 
steps among ten thousand which have been im- 
printed there during that daj^ and finally tracing 
his wa}^ home for miles by that fine sense. How 
can one who knows this to be so, question the 
ability of Infinite Wisdom to keep the remem- 
brance of all his affairs distinct ? 

This good man, Job, says, " Doth not He see 
my ways and count all my steps ? " David makes 
this appeal to the all-knowing God : " Put thou 
ifly tears in Thy bottle ; are they not in Thy 
book?" God keeps a record of every tear, 
when, why it was shed ; David prays him to be 
still more observant of them ; — " Put my tears 
into thy bottle," he says : catch every falling 
drop. O the infinite, yes, the infinite love of 
God for ever}^ child of His here appears. We 
speak of God as a father ; He does more ; He 
speaks of Himself as a mother." As one whom 
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, 
and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." " Can 



168 THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU 

a woman forget ? " says God ; " yea they may for- 
get ; yet will I not forget thee." Judgment is 
before him as it is before the tenderest friend. 
God never forgets; never mistakes. He keeps 
the time-table of the comets ; He knows when 
one planet is to cross another's track ; He remem- 
bered Israel in Egypt ; and in the last two verses 
of the second chapter of Exodus we read these 
remarkable words : " And God heard their 
groaning, and God remembered his covenant 
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob ; and 
God looked upon the children of Israel, and God 
had respect unto them." Four times in those 
few lines is that adoral^le name repeated in con- 
nection with His remembrance of His afflicted 
people. Judgment is before. Him, whenever a 
child of His suffers; the arrow that pierces us, 
wounds His heart ere it reaches ours. 

IV. OUE DUTY IX DAEK HOURS IS HERE 
MADE PLAZN-. 

'* Therefore trust in Him." This is" done by 
special heartfelt address to God by word of 
mouth. It is not enough to think a prayer, unless 
we are speechless by reason of sickness, then our 
thoughts are prayers. We cannot but think that 
when the Psalmist saj' s, "My voice shalt thou hear 
in the morning, O Lord ; in the morning will I di- 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 169 

rect my prayer unto thee and will look up," he 
means to be understood literally; that he would 
not as a rule lie in bed and think a prayer to 
God. There is meaning in his resolution to let 
God hear his voice. Speaking requires an effort 
of mind which is not made when we lie still and 
muse, unless, as I said before, we are under some 
infirmity. To rise and go upon our knees, im- 
plies a serious determination to seek God, and 
the act of framing our speech, shows that we are 
in earnest. Cotton Mather says of Rev. N. 
Rogers of Ipswich, that every morning for many 
3'ears, while in health, it was his custom on ris- 
ing from his bed immediately to fall upon his 
knees. So that when we are in trouble it is a 
good thing for us to draw nigh to God with 
words. " Take with 3*ou words and turn unto 
the Lord ; say unto him. Take away all iniquity, 
and heal us graciously ; so will we render the 
calves of our lips." We do well if we remem- 
ber this in our approach to God. 

When David says, " Awake up, my glory," he 
means, 'my tongue, the glovj of my frame.' An 
effort to speak is often a sure sign that our 
powers are summoned by us to a serious effort. 
The time, the place, the manner, the attitude of 
our approach to God are regarded by Him. 
There may be a serious deficiency in our habit 
of approach to God ; a carelessness, a negli- 



170 THE COUNSEL OF ELTHU 

gence, which we would not be guilty of in our 
intercourse with one another. A solemn, delib- 
erate expression of our trust in God is sure to be 
regarded by Him. " Trust in Him at all times ; 
ye people, pour out your hearts before Him ; 
God is a refuge for us." You may not be aware 
that your address to God has been heard ; but 
David says, " I will direct my pra3^er unto thee 
and will look up," as one who shoots an arrow 
follows it with his eye to see how it speeds. 
Having committed our prayer to God, declaring 
our trust in Him, we must show our sincerity by 
a quietness of mind which, be it remembered, is 
not inconsistent with importunit}^ Yet we need 
not suspect ourselves of impatience if we find 
ourselves saying, " How long wilt thou forget 
me, O Lord, forever ? " " Make no tarrying, O 
my God." 

But there are some events in which we feel it 
proper to abstain from specific requests in j^ray- 
er, as, in hopeless sickness, the recovery of aged 
persons whose restoration cannot be desired by 
themselves or their friends. Again, there are 
sorrows which neither earth nor time can heal. 
In such cases, " it is good that a man should both 
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the 
Lord ! " Eternity will witness great surprises. 
Some who never awaken any solicitude, no doubt 
will prove to have no oil in their vessels with 
their lamps when the Bridegroom comes. 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 171 

It has fallen to my lot to meet with more than 
one case like this : A man has suddenly died 
who followed false doctrine, giving no sign of 
recantation. His young widow said, " His 
friends of course suppose that he failed to be 
saved. If so, let me perish with him." So she 
resolutely embraced his erroneous views, becom- 
ing more zealous than he in defending them. 
One day I startled her with this question : 
" What makes you feel so sure that your hus- 
band did not recant in his last hours ? Perhaps 
he did, though for two days he could not speak 
to inform 3'ou of the change in his views. Sup- 
pose that when you die you should find that he 
is saved bj^ accepting Christ in those last days, 
and that you, trying to follow his steps in unbe- 
belief, have missed him, and he is comforted and 
3^ou are not. What a sad mistake you will 
make, to have persisted in following a mortal in- 
stead of listening to the suggestions of the Holy 
Spirit, urging you to Christ. Believe the Gos- 
pel ; then you will either find your companion in 
heaven, or have a satisfactory reason given you 
why he is not there. Do not conclude that your 
husband is not saved because j^ou did not hear him 
make a confession of faith. It might have had 
a disastrous effect on survivors to know that he, 
after such a life, was saved in the last hour. 
Make your own calling sure." It was gratifying 



172 THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU 

to see her confess Christ, choosiDg rather to fol- 
low His plain iiistructions than the bewildering 
light which was leading her among tombstones, 
over graves. 

It is wrong to assume that we are possessed of 
fall knowledge concerning that which has taken 
place between the soul and God. His ways are 
not as our ways, neither His thoughts as our 
thoughts. Many times He shuts up a man and 
there is no opening, not a gleam of light ; there 
is silence and he hears a voice, "Be still and 
know that I am God." All that one can do at 
such a time is to fulfil the ordinary duties of 
life, faithfully, patiently, bearing the grievous 
burden. Some people seem unwilling to forgive 
God, if He has done thus and thus ; but who 
shall sa}^ to Him, " What doest thou? " 

•We should never abandon ourselves to incon- 
solable grief in the darkest hours. * God takes 
■pleasure in those who against hope, believe in 
hope, taking part with God b}^ insisting that He 
is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that 
we ask or think. While faith in Jesus Christ is the 
superior act of faith, it cannot be questioned 
that before Christ came, believing in God was 
imputed to Abraham for righteousness, and that 
God will justify many of the heathen through 
faitli, whose knowledge of God does not reach 
beyond those invisible things of Him which are 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 173 

clearly seen, being understood from the things 
which are made. " Was not Abraham our father 
justified by works when he had offered Isaac, his 
son, upon, the altar ? " 

. Thunder never strikes ; it is 9nly lightning 
that strikes. At the same time while thunder 
never strikes, the lightning which has no thun- 
der is only heat-lightnmg. So repentance can- 
not save ; faith only saves ; yet faith without 
repentance is only heat-lightning. Repentance 
has no power to save ; yet it is essential to faith. 
Thus, works have no saving power; yet faith with- 
out works is dead. So while faith in Jesus Christ 
is the power of God and the wisdom of God 
unto salvation, and nothing can supplant it, 
Abraham's offering of Isaac on the altar showed 
a readiness to accept Christ; therefore it was 
imputed to him for righteousness, as it is writ- 
ten, '"Abraham believed God, and it was im- 
puted unto him for righteousness." Therefore 
say, " Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and 
why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope thou 
in God, for I shall* yet praise Him who is the 
health of my countenance." 

Did we but know it, God is wooing those 
whom He is afflicting. " He scourgeth every 
son whom He receiveth." Therefore be of good 
courage, desponding souls. Submit yourselves 
under His rod. If you are of a melancholy dis- 



174 THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU 

position, read in the epistle of James. " Paul 
and Peter require three or four verses to finish 
their salutatories before they begin their doc- 
trine ; but James seems so full of something 
good to tell us that he cannot wait beyond one 
verse, but bursts forth with these Avords of cheer 
in his second verse : "My brethren, count it all 
joy when ye fall into divers temptations." If 
you are despondent, seek out the poor, many of 
whom are rich in faith, and talk with them. A 
good man who was melancholy, began in a 
gloomy tone to say to a colored woman, "Does 
it not seem strange to you that God should' pass 
by the rich people who live in these mansions and 
come to your hovel to make you a Christian ? " 
"No, sir, it is not strange," said she, "it is just 
like Him." The answer did more to cure his 
melancholy than did his books. So we say to you 
who are cast down : " Wait on the Lord." " Be of 
good courage, and He shall strengthen your 
heart, all ye that hope in the Lord." 
I have asked you to consider 

I. If without faith it is_ impossible to please 
Crod, we may infer that faith is eminently pleas- 
ing to Him. 

ir. A principal design of the Old Testament 

is to teach us faith. 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 175 

III. The Counsel of JElihu in the text is pro- 
jitahle to a sinking heart. 

IV. Our duty in dark hours is here made 
plain. 

finally. eveeything which has been 
said of tbtjst in" god in times of despon- 
dency, is eminently tefe of faith in the 
Saviour. 

It is one proof of His equality with God that 
Christ said, "Let not your heart be troubled j 
ye believe in God, believe also in me." An im- 
poster might say this arrogantly ; but none save 
a divine being could properly speak of himself 
in comparison with God. Despondency is never 
so much out of place as in coming to Christ. 
There it is sinful. God classes the fearful and 
unbelieving with all liars ; and we know where 
they are to have their part. Afraid to trust 
yourself in those hands which were nailed to the 
cross for the sins of the whole world ! The hands 
of Him who said, "All power is given unto Me 
in heaven and on earth ? " " All that the Father 
halh given Me shall come to Me, and him that 
Cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out?" 
if confidence, if boldness, is proper at any 



176 THE COUNSEL OF ELIHU 

time, and in any, it is eminently so in a guilty 
creature coming to the Saviour of sinners. Let 
a trembling soul hear these words; "Let us 
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace 
that we may obtain mercy." Paul says of Christ, 
" In whom we have boldness and access with con- 
fidence by the faith of Him." To the Hebrews 
who saw the High Priest going alone once a year 
into the Holy of holies, he says, " Having there- 
fore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest 
by the blood of Jesus — let us draw near." 
John uses this astonishing expression : "Herein 
is our love made perfect, that we may have bold- 
ness in the day of judgment." 

Come then, one and all, and only believe. Be- 
lieve and you shall be established. " He that 
believeth shall be saved." Begin with believing 
in Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our 
faith. In every event of life, in trials, sorrows, 
losses, disappointments, remember this : 

" With patience, then, the course of duty run : 
" God never does, nor suffers to be done, 
" But thou would'st do thyself could'st thou but see 
" The end of all events as well as He." 

" Blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
have believed." Happy is he here and hereafter. 



TO THE DESPONDENT. 177 

wlio can say, not as an intellectual, philosophical 
truth, but with the heart, " Lord, I know that 
Thy judgments are right." Verily it will be said 
of such as of Israel, "He led them forth by 
the EIGHT way." 



TEO UART THE a UIDE OF MY TO UTH, 

•' Wilt thou not from this time crj-^ unto me, My father, thou art the 
guide of my youth ? " — Jeremiah 3:4. 

THERE is nothing more wonderful than 
prayer. One would think that every child 
might agree to this. If asked to prove it, he 
would need only to point to the text. God 
invites the youngest to j^ray to Him. There can 
be nothing more wonderful than this. It is 
indeed astonishing that God should listen to 
prayer ; much more, that He should invite us to 
pray ; but a child may well say, that for God to 
wonder at him for not praying, thus .apparently 
deeming a child's prayer of sufficient importance 
to be inquired into if neglected, almost exceeds 
belief. One who admits this truth, that God 
really pays attention to prayer, not only invit- 
ing but exhorting to it, will be prepared to ap- 
preciate the remark of Daniel Webster to a 
kinsman who spent a night at his house at Marsh- 
(178) 



THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 179 

field, and related the conversatioa to me. He 
said " that of all the things which ever inter- 
ested his mind this was cliief : The personal re- 
lation of a soul to God." He explained, sapng, 
that he perceived in the Scriptures that God re- 
cognized every man as accountable to Him for his 
conduct, even to his thoughts and words ; that 
He took a personal interest in all that transpired 
within him, listening to his words of supplica- 
tion, understanding his thoughts afar off, making 
him feel that he and every one has an individual 
relation to God which does not seem to be de- 
pendant on rank and endowments ; but every 
soul is the handiwork of God. This appeared 
to Mr. Webster the chief subject of interest 
among the things which had ever engaged his 
thoughts. 

God may be said to solicit our pra3^ers. The 
Old Testament seems to instruct us how men 
formerly walked by sight ; the New Testament 
teaches us tliat now men are to walk by faith. 
Visions, voices, dreams, messages from God by 
His servants the prophets, are now withdrawn. 
But God has not changed ; He is educating us 
to trust in Him, giving us His written Word in- 
stead of signs and wonders. It must have been 
of thrilling interest, when messages, instructions, 
promises passed from heaven to earth, some of 
them direct answers to prayer ; and not to a man 



180 THOU ART THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

only, but even to young persons. George Her- 
bert says : 

** Sweet were the days when. Thou didst lodge with Lot, 
Struggle with Jacob, sit with Gideon, 
Advise with Abraham, when Thy power could not 
Encounter Moses' strong complaint and moan." 

We cannob wonder if it should seem to any 
that the greatness of God consists in His conde- 
scension ; certainly if to them nothing is more sur- 
prising in the Most High than His notice of inferior 
things. God himself directs our attention to this. 
" For thus saith the High and Lofty One that 
inhabiteth eternity," (surely such a Being cannot 
intend to speak to me,) " whose name is Holy ;" 
(then, of course there can be no hope that he 
can have regard for sinners;) " I dwell in the 
high and holy place ;" (and what more could be 
said to make us feel that He is unapproachable ; 
but hear the words which follow,) " with him 
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to 
revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the 
heart of the contrite ones." 

Suck being the disposition of the Most High, 
we cannot doubt that He loves the child who 
loves Him. As David told Solomon, his son, 
" If thou seek Him He will be found of thee.'' 
We may conclude that the younger a child is, the 



THOU ART THE GUn)E OF MY YOUTH. 181 

more disposed God is to take notice of him. If 
we were called to say what attracts the special 
notice of God, we should reply, a young person 
praying. The -younger you are the more notice- 
able are you to God. Therefore, we may say 
that young people should be considerate in their 
prayers, think seriously of what they say, re- 
membering that the Most High God of heaven 
and earth hears every word, knows the thoughts 
of the heart. 

No one may saj^ with more assurance than a 
child, "The Lord thinketh upon me." God 
says, " When Israel was a child then I loved him 
and called my son out of Egypt." And in 
the text He says to the nation of Israel, " Wilt 
thou not from thig time cry unto me, My Father, 
Thou art the guide of my youth ? " From which 
we infer that God is in a peculiar manner inter- 
ested in youth ; whether a nation or individual 
is young, the period of youth is in an espe- 
cial manner interesting to God ; He in the text 
invites a nation to think of this, to love him as 
having been their guide when they were help- 
less as a people. We are warranted in apply- 
ing these words to every young person as an in- 
vitation from God to choose Him to be the guide 
of his youth. 

I will show you why we may suppose that 
God feels this peculiar interest in young per- 
sons. 



182 THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

I. God sees that youth is the foem^ 

ING PEEIOD OF OUE BEING. 

His eye surveys eternity, and along its meas- 
ureless paths He sees your spirit capable of joy 
or woe. He who says, " I know all the fowls 
of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the 
field are mine," of course has a kind regard for 
you, who, the Saviour says, " are of more value 
than many sparrows." " Your heavenly Father 
feedeth them ; are ye not much better than the 
fowls?" God says of Himself: " Of my years 
there is no end." 

We may, each of us who love Him, lie in the 
dust before Him and joyfully say. Of my years 
there is no end. God says, "iFor I lift up my 
hand to heaven and say, I live forever." We 
may lay our hand upon our mouth and our mouth 
in the dust and say, I live forever. We know 
that this is as true as the words of God, when 
He says the same of Himself. We cannot but 
believe that God feels an unutterable interest in 
every one who is to inhabit a coming eternity. 
He looks upon every one destined to such an ex- 
istence with peculiar interest in the opening years 
of life, for He knows that the first few years of 
that life determine in a great degree what we 
shall be. 

We who have lived to manhood, look back to 



• THOU ART THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 183 

the time when we were at the age of some of 
3^ou ; we could at that age as well as later, have 
yielded to the invitation of God ; would that we 
had done so ; we should have been spared bit- 
ter sorrows, unavailing tears. We did not be- 
lieve then, as we now see it to be true, that we 
were in the most important period of our being ; 
forming habits, committing sins, indulging tem- 
pers, cherishing dispositions, which years have 
been spent in correcting, if indeed we have up 
to the present time succeeded in conquering 
them. We should have been kept from displeas- 
ing God, awakening His lament over us : " O 
that they were wise, that they understood this, 
that they would consider their latter end." 
We hope now through infinite grace to stand 
accepted before God in Christ Jesus. But we 
say, " Would that we had never sinned against 
Thee ; that we had barkened to Thy voice ; that 
our first years had been spent in obedience" to 
Thy commands; that we had, like "the child Je- 
sus when twelve years old, been " about our Fa- 
ther's business," which would have been keep- 
ing His commandments, loving Him and loving 
othei-s, — His two great precepts. Then we 
should have been spared regrets which forever 
will live in our memories, and in the memories 
of those who were witnesses of our sins. 

In heaven we shall esteem these of our race 



184 THOU ART THE GTJIDB OF MY YOUTH. 

as greatly to be honored, who began in early 
3^outh to love God, instead of spending their 
first 3^ears in sinful ways. Perhaps we would 
willingly return to earth and renew our proba- 
tion, to put our promise to the test of instantly 
obeying the commands of God ; but in vain 
should we desire another probation; the good 
and the wicked will have lived their allotted 
time on earth, and it cannot be repeated ; if ut- 
terly wasted it will be the subject of never end- 
ing sorrow ; if partly misimproved and we are 
saved, though we have spent years in disobedi- 
ence, we shall remember the words of God which 
we learned in youth : " O that they were wise, 
that they understood this, that they would con- . 
sider their latter end." 

God foreseeing this, calls upon us to be wise 
betimes. He cries to us, " Wilt thou not from 
this time cry unto me. My Father, Thou art the 
guide of my youth ? " 

II. Another reaso^^t why God makes 

THIS APPEAL TO US IS, He REJOICES IN A 
YOUNG child's LOVE. 

We none of us set any value on our love to 
God; especially it is difficult to persuade chil- 
dren that it is a precious thing to God to be 
loved by them. Yet we are told that God re- 



THOU ART THE GUIDE OF 3VIY YOUTH. 185 

joiced in His works, He is pleased with the objects 
of His creative wisdom ; the wonders of the uni- 
verse, stupendous as they are, make us ready to 
adore Him who gave them being. The colors 
which He has painted on the minerals, the vege- 
table kingdom, the waters, the sky ; the curious 
things which abound every where in the works 
of His hands ; the notes of music which greet 
us on all sides, do not fail to excite in us the be- 
lief that the Most High takes pleasure in these 
proofs of His divine wisdom. Many a young per- 
son has felt reproved for needlessly taking the 
life of a harmless creeping thing, by thinking, 
" I have destroyed that which it is beyond the 
skill of men and angels to restore. God alone 
gave the life of this creature which I have now 
destroyed! " That which could excite this just 
reflection in us is not to be compared with the 
interest which a human soul excites in God. 
Though, w^e are chief among the works of 
God, yet our foundation is the dust and we 
perish before the moth, and in the sight of God 
we are less than nothing, and vanity, yet we 
see plainly in the Scriptures that God is pleased 
to set a value on human affection above all 
things. As we read in the Old Testament, we 
cannot but notice that nothing occupies the 
thoughts of God so much as the feelings of men 
toward Him. You may have noticed that the 



186 THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

thing wliicli is always mentioned first in the 
Books of the Kings and Chronicles is, whether 
each of those kings did right or did evil in the 
sight of the Lord ; and according as they did 
either, they had the blessing of the Almighty, 
or they incurred His displeasure. 

We are to infer that the pleasure which it ex- 
cites. in the readers of the Bible who notice the 
commendable conduct of the young persons who 
are brought to view in Scripture, is but an echo 
of that which is called the voice of God in the 
soul. Great as His works are, none of them are 
capable of the emotion of love to God. The planet- 
ary world cannot feel like a child when it says, 
" Our Father which art in heaven." The poet 
represents them singing as they shine, " The 
hand that made us is divine ; " but none of 
them framed a prayer, nor conceived of an utter- 
ance such as breathes from the Psalms ; " I will 
love thee, O Lord m}^ strength." There are, it 
may.be, many kinds of voices in the world, 
and none of them is without signification ; 
but it is only a devout heart which interprets 
their motions and brightness to represent 
its own love to God. We do not err if we 
suppose our own feelings on witnessing a child's 
love to its parents, to be a transcript of the feel- 
ings of God toward a child who loves Him. 
" Take heed -that ye despise not one of these lit- 



THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 187 

tie ones ; for I say unto you," the Saviour tells 
us, (for so we interpret His words), " angels ap- 
pointed to guard them are angels of my presence, 
who do always behold the face of my father 
which is in heaven." We are prepared to be- 
lieve that God loves the affection of a child if 
we fully receive the Saviour's testimony as to 
the love which is felt for them by the Most 
High God. 

If God loves the young with a tender compas- 
sion, and merely for their being young, I ob- 
serve 

III. He HONOES THE YOUNG PEESON WHO 
EENOUNCES SaTAN AND THE WICKED, FOE 

Him. 

Probably Satan is never more ashamed than 
when defeated by a child. Young persons are 
right in believing that the wicked one tempts 
them ; they allege this when they are persuaded 
that there is something preternatural in certain 
.violent impulses which they are conscious of, cer- 
tain temptations which they feel persuaded could 
not have originated from themselves ; and they 
insist on this when they are in a mood which is 
far from a self-justifying spirit. 

The apostle John speaks to the young as par- 
ticularly liable to Satan's devices: "I write un- 
to you, young men, because ye have overcome 



188 THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

the wicked one." Satan has great designs on the 
young. He would do more to succeed with the 
3'oung, than with those who are confirmed in sin 
by evil habits ; for such persons need less solici- 
tude on his part to accomplish their ruin. It is 
affecting to notice that in addressing fathers, 
young men, and children, the apostle John speaks 
first to children ; and more especially it is inter- 
esting to observe that which he says to them : 
" I write unto you, little children, because your 
sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." 

The sins of childhood need the atonement as 
really as the sins of the whole w^orld. It seems 
to have been a great pleasure of the beloved 
disciple, who, at the time of writing this was in 
extreme old age, to assure these pious children 
that the great propitiation reached even to them. 
One other source of joy to him in connection 
with them he adds in the verse following : " I 
write unto you, little children, because ye have 
known the Father." He in these words gives 
us an assurance of the love of God to children 
w ho love Him ; for if they love Him, it is be- 
cause He first loved them. We may feel confi- 
dent that it excites the love of God and of holy 
beings to see the young resist temptation; and 
here we repeat a remark just now made, that Sa- 
tan is never filled. wath shame in a measure so 
marked, as when that Goliath is humbled by the 
sling and stone of a child. 



THOU AET THE GUn)E OF MY YOITTH. 189 

We imagine the heavenly host, angels and 
saints, looking on with delight when a young 
person is steadfastly resisting his temptations, 
saying to him as the man Christ Jesus did when 
tempted of the devil : " Get thee behind me, Sa- 
tan ;" nor do the evil spirits probably feel more 
humbled than when they see the prince of hell 
overcome by a child. Perhaps it seems a little 
thing to a young child, tempted to do wrong to 
say, " How shall I do this great wickedness and 
sin against God ? " Yet for saying this young 
Joseph in Egypt became "the shepherd and the 
stone of Israel ; " he saved his father and breth- 
ren in famine, thus laying the corner stone of the 
nation of Israel. Saying this when tempted of 
the devil, as Joseph did, a j'oung person may 
have it recorded of him on high, " then the devil 
leaveth him, and behold angels came and minis- 
tered unto him." 

Probably Satan dreads the derision of angels 
as they see him skulking away from a little child 
who has resisted iiim, more than to meet Michael 
and his battalions in array against liim. What 
means yonder shout ? A child has refused to do 
wickedly when tempted by the devil ; the devil 
retreats from him ashamed ; the angels of God 
look on, and as they see their enemy and ours 
hieing away defeated by a young person, their 
exultation, perhaps, mortifies the hosts of hell 



190 THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

more than their shouts of conquest when he and 
they are defeated by the archangel and his 
cherubs. So the evangelist John tells us, "• I 
write unto you, young men, because ye have 
overcome the wicked one." It is more to have the 
apostle who " saw the Apocalypse," write those 
few words to you than to have an emperor write 
your name in his legion of honor. For him to 
write it twice in two successive verses to young 
people, " I write unto you, young men, because 
ye have overcome, the wicked one," is more to 
be desired than any earthly distinction. Such a 
crown fades; but to overcome the wicked one, 
is to have that young person's name emblazoned 
to the everlasting shame of wicked angels and 
wicked men. 

The God of heaven is standing here making 
direct appeal to. 3^011 in these affectionate words : 
" Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My 
Father, Thou art the guide of my youth ? " He 
has His eye on one and another young person 
who has occasion to say, " When my father and 
my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take 
me up." God is interested in such, for "A 
father of the fatherless and a judge of the widow 
is the Lord in His holy habitation ; " by which we 
infer that in heaven where many wlio dwell with 
Him have left tlieir wives and children mourning 



THOU AUT THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 191 

for them, God is known in a pesuliar manner the 
father and the judge of the bereaved ones. 
Therefore, it is always pecuUarly interesting to 
preach to those who have God for their God in 
a special sense. To them we may suppose that 
God intends the words of the text to be peculi- 
arly addressed. 

I will take it for granted that each one who 
hears this kind appeal from God will, in retire- 
ment, kneel and make response to it. Your an- 
swer may decide the course of your whole future 
life. God may connect blessings with your an- 
swer, for He has never said to the seed of Jacob, 
"Seek ye my'face in vain." The heart of one 
and another will happily prompt them to sa}^, 
" When tliou saidst. Seek ye my face, my heart 
said unto Thee, Thy face. Lord, will I seek." If 
so, there will be joy in heaven, because young 
persons whom I here address, are to make a cove- 
nant with God. 

A young man slept in a field. He took of the 
stones of the place and set them up for a pillow. 
No one would have anticipated for him such an 
experience as there befel him, for he was obliged 
to take that journey in flight from his brother 
whom he had defrauded. But the angels of God 
had appeared to him ascending and descending 
upon a stairway reaching from heaven to earth, 
and God stood above it and made covenant pro- 



192 THOU ART THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 

mises to him and to bis posterity wliicli extend 
to the present da3^ This same God speaks now 
to every one on the journey of life, offering to 
be the guide of his youth. 

Me thinks I hear some say, We would like to 
have this God for our guide ! Blessed emotion ! 
Cherish it, for it is a whisper of the divine 
Spirit. Use the means by which the spark of 
holy desire shall kindle to a iiame. Seriously 
consider that declaration of Jesus Christ : " No 
man cometh unto the Father but by me." He 
who said this is He that came into the world to 
save sinners. He saves them by His death en- 
dured on the cross as an atonement for the sins 
of the world. This death was endured for us 
as individuals, and must be applied to 3'ou as an 
atonement for your sins. Believing on Christ is 
the way by which you can be at peace with God, 
and there is none other way under heaven given 
among men whereby we must be saved. God 
will not be the guide of one who has not made 
application to this Saviour, with faith in Him ; 
but him that cometh unto Him, " He will in no 
wise cast out." Put j^ourself as a condemned 
sinner in His hands, trusting in His sufferings 
and death for you. Then a covenant-kee^^ing 
God; — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will be 
your Guide. This Guide will not only take jou. 
safe home, but will keep you and bless you by 



THOU AET THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH. 193 

the way. You will feel cod strained to talk with 
Him ; you will read His Word ; you will find it 
your constant support and joy. Your exulting 
song will be, 

" Wherever He may guide me 
No want shall turn me back ; 
My Shepherd is beside me, 
And nothing can I lack. 

" His wisdom ever waketh, 

His sight is never dim ; 
He knows the way He taketh, 

And I will walk with Him." 

Thus commit yourself to the Saviour who has 
been knocking at the door of your heart, and 
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy 
Ghost, will be your Guide and Portion forever. 



XI. 



TEE DOCTRINE OF GEBIZIM AND 
EBAE 

"Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth 
down?" — Deuteronomy xi : 30. 

When Israel was about to cross the Jordan, 
God commanded Moses to set apart two 
mountains in Moab soon to be in the possession 
of Israel, to be symbolical places, proclaiming 
from the first entrance of the nation into the 
promised land, by an observance to be estab- 
lished upon them, a doctrine of which their future 
history would be an emphatic illustration. 

The views of prophets from age to age re- 
peated that doctrine. Isaiah, a prophet of kingly 
origin, uttered it five hundred years from the 
time of Moses, when he said, " Say ye to the 
righteous it shall be well with him, for he shall 
eat the fruit of his doings. Woe unto the 
wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward 
of his hands shall be given him." Even to the 
(194) 



THE DOCTRINE OF GEEIRIM AND EBAL. 195 

time of Hosea, not many years before tlie carry- 
ing awaj' captive into Babjdon, the doctrine was 
declared by that prophet to be destined still to 
continue. For he sajs, " Tlien shall ye return 
and discern between the righteous and the 
wicked : between him that serveth God and him 
that serveth Him not." That it was to be per- 
petuated to the end of time, is manifest in the 
last chapter of the Book of Revelation, at its 
close. Therefore the appointment of those two 
mountains, Gerizim and Ebal, before the children 
of Israel were settled in Canaan, to be as it were 
oracular places from which this doctrine alone 
should be statedly proclaimed, is impressive. 

Moses was directed before the people had en- 
tered the promised land, to put the blessing on 
mount Gerizim, and the curse on mount Ebal, six 
of the tribes to stand over against the one and 
six over against the other ; between the two, 
several hundred thousand people would assem- 
ble. With loud voices six of the Levites would 
read, or repeat from the lips of the leader of the 
nation, the blessings from Gerizim and the 
curses from Ebal. 

When assemblies were held in the open air, 
^the sense of the hearing was more acute than 
now, as we also know that memory was more re- 
tentive before printing was discovered, when the 
bards used to recite their poems and historians 



196 THE DOCTErS^E OF GEEIZENI AND EBAL. 

their histories to great assemblies, showing a fa- 
cility both oil the part of the speakers and of the 
audiences, respectively, of uttering from memoiy 
and retaining long discourses. It may not be 
unsuitable to remind ourselves as a help to faith 
with regard to certain representations in the 
Scriptures, what power of voice is acquired by. 
venders of articles in streets, also b}^ command- 
ers, by navigators, which gives us some idea of 
the distinctness as well as strength of those 
voices resounding through the plain ; blessings 
from Gerizim and curses from Ebal, heard by 
many thousands at once. This was the earliest 
form of preaching, under the impression of which 
the tribes kept up the memorj^ of their duties to 
their Maker, enforced by the rehearsal of bles- 
sings and curses received by dictation from God. 
The Bible, written book after book in the ages 
following the settlement of Israel in Canaan, is 
a repetition of the feature in the government of 
God which seems to have been hung over the 
doorwa}^ into Canaan. From the Red Sea into 
the Promised Land through the times of the 
Judges and of the Kings till the Captivity, and 
through the Captivity to the coming of Christ's 
blessings and curses, are continually announced ^ 
with the same distinctness ; though if either the 
blessino's or the carsino-s can be said to have the 
greater prominence, one thing inclines us to say, 



THE DOCTRINE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 197 

that the curses have the preclommence. For it is 
to be observed that the curses engraven on the 
altar are rehearsed, while the blessings are not 
given. 

The New Testament continues the same strain 
of blessing and cursing ; if heaven is promised, 
hell is w^ith equal distinctness declared to be the 
portion of the unregenerate ; everlasting life and 
everlasting damnation are the two distinguish- 
ing phrases which set forth the destiny of the 
righteous and the wicked. If there be one 
sacred writer wdio is peculiarly emphatic in his 
distinctions between the two classes of mankind, 
or singular in his descriptions of the respective 
allotments which are to fall to either class, it is 
the beloved disciple who writes the Book which 
closes the Bible. Peter, Jude and John seem to 
be charged with special electric force in setting 
forth the doom of the wicked, as well as with 
special energy in depicting the rewards of the 
risfhteous. To them succeed a Ioug: line of min- 
isters, whom Christ, Avhen He ascended up on 
high, received as gifts to men; they were 
charged by their master with tins message : — 
"He that believeth shall be saved, and he that 
believeth not shall be damned." With varying 
degrees of faithfulness they have made this their 
message to men. When in times of apostasy the 
people and their teachers have degenerated, God 



198 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 

lias now and then raised up one and another who 
have made the people feel that the duty of every 
minister is to be continually saying, '' Woe is me 
if I preach not the Gospel." There is a temp- 
tation not to preach it, for it is a self-denying 
task to be continually prophesying evil to the 
sinner. 

The experience of Jeremiah is seen to be the 
certain lot of those who like him are reprovers. 
So ministers lower their tone. Some persuade 
them that they can more easily draw than drive 
their hearers to repentance. Therefore, they 
prophesy smooth things ; they preach about the 
Gospel instead of enunciating its warnings, mak- 
ing men see and feel the certain doom which 
awaits the impenitent; they fall into moral dis- 
quisitions, portray the beauties of Christianity, 
the character of Christ, the love of God ; but 
the great theme of endless retribution is by some 
of them seldom mentioned ; indeed those who 
dwell upon salvation from endless perdition by 
Christ, and warn men night and day with tears, 
are loaded with opprobrious epithets. The 
natural consequence of this is, union" with 
pulpits who deny this doctrine, a most ominous 
feature of our times. 

But here and there we find those who 
preach as the Levites uttered the words of the 
Most High on Gerizim and Ebal. George White- 



THE DOCTELN-E OF GERIZIM AND EBAL. 199 

field was an example ; our large towns, North 
and SoU'tli, record his faithful ministrj^ which 
set forth with the impartiality of Gerizim and 
Ebal the goodness and the severity of God. 
Some of the places where he preached bear wit- 
ness that even his wonderful eloquence did not 
avail to make the doctine of retribution accepta- 
ble to the human heart. 

Another example of faithful enunciation of the 
doctrine of endless retribution, was seen in the 
preaching of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards of 
Northampton, Massachusetts. Considering how 
far the times have lapsed from bis standard of 
preaching, we can scarcely believe that a man was 
bold enough, since the days of the prophets and 
apostles to preach as he did. He was celebrated 
in England and Scotland as a prince among di- 
vines ; in this country, no stated preacher ever 
had greater celebrity among the churches and 
pastors. Owing to his ministry, the influence 
of which was widely diffused, one part of our 
country was favored of God with a revival of 
religion in 1740, which was seldom if ever sur- 
passed in this or any land, — a signal testi- 
mony to the power of a stated ministry, to the 
diffusive influences of a single pastor aided by 
the influences of the Holy Spirit. But v/hat 
were the themes which this great man with his 
feeble voice, inanimate gesticulation, dwelt upon 



200 THE DOCTEINE OF GERIZESI AND EBAL. 

in his preacliing ? for while we adore the sover- 
eignty of God in the success of such a man, we 
cannot fail to recognize the connection which the 
Holy Spirit institutes between truth and the be- 
stowment of .His iufluences. Here is a list of 
his principal discourses, though in several in- 
stances when delivered, it was a series of dis- 
courses. In the seventh volume of his Works, 
^ome of the principal are these : " Justifica- 
tion by Faith alone; Men naturally God's ene- 
mies; The True Christian's Life a Journey to- 
ward Heaven ; True Grace Distinguished from 
the Experience of Devils ; The Excellency of 
Christ ; Ruth's Resolution ; The Justice of God 
in the Damnation of Sinners ; Eternity of Hell 
Torments; The Punishment of the Wicked In- 
tolerable ; The Folly of Looking back when 
fleeing out of Sodom ; The Unreasonableness of 
In determination in Religion ; Unbelievers con- 
temn the Excellency and Glory of Christ; God 
glorified in Man's Dependence ; Sinners in the 
Hands of an Angrj^ God." 

The last of these sermons when preached at 
Enfield in 1741, is said to have electrified the 
congregation; it made them weep aloud; and 
this was not owing to the speaker's manuer of 
deliver}', for nothing could be more in contrast 
with the rhetorical power of Whitefield than the 
oratory of Edwards. A minister Avho sat in the 



THE DOCTKmE OF GEEIZBI AND EBAL. 201 

pulpit was so much affected by the preacher's 
inculcation of his subject, that he reached for- 
ward and pulled him by the coat saying, " But, 
Mr. Edwards, remember that God is merciful." 
Mr. Edwards knew that, and in its proper place 
he made it to be felt ; but he was preaching then 
from the second clause in the thirty-second chap- 
ter of Deuteronomy ; '' their feet shall slide in 
due time." 

No man's published sermons are more full of 
Christ than his. It was his intense conviction of 
what Christ is and has done, as appears in his 
History of Redemption and other treatises, the 
most of them beins^ the substance of discourses 
from the pulpit, which made him feel the power 
of the apostle's question ; " How shall we escape 
if we neglect so great salvation ? " 

O, that we who preach were willing to speak 
to men under the solemn impression that our 
hearers who die without accepting the great pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice for sin, '' shall not see life, but 
the wrath of God abideth on them." We are 
not called of God to preach to scholars, as such, 
any more than Paul regarded himself ordained 
to preach so as to gratify those who were seek- 
ing after a sign or wisdom, but to those who may 
be hearing from us for the last time the way of 
salvation from endless punishment. If we wish 
to please God we must tread popularity under 



202 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 

foot, urging men to accept the ransom whicli Je- 
sus Christ has made for them in his own body on 
the tree. 

We shall not be popular with the unbelieving 
world if we preach distinctively on retribution. 
It is not in place here to rehearse the history of 
this faithful preacher, his unpopularity at last 
with the rising generation, his fruitless efforts to 
maintain the way of the fathers. He jdelded to 
the current and retired to be president of a col- 
lege ; but the foe of God and man has not 
ceased to this day to cast out his name as evil. 
You see him mentioned with reviling in our own 
day. So the enemies of Wicldiffe, years after 
his death, dug up his bones and burned them 
and threw his ashes into the brook "Swift," 
which as it was said, " conveyed them into the 
Severn and the Severn into the sea, and so like his 
doctrine they have been spread the world over." 

We must tread popularity under foot, and be 
ready to suffer the loss of all things. Doing this 
we shall indeed verify the words of the Saviour, 
"He that hateth his life shall keep it unto life 
eternal." We shall secure the lasting approval 
of good men in tliis w^orld if we make it mani- 
fest that our constant aim is to preach salvation. 

Here this question arises : Salvation from 
what ? Salvation implies damnation. There is 
no salvation if there be no damnation. Who 



THE DOCTRINE OF GEKIZIM Al^D EBAL. 203 

hesitates to admit that Jesus Christ is a Saviour ? 
But, Saviour from what? Tell me what is the 
opposite of Salvation ? In other words, What 
w^ll happen to a man who is not saved ? We 
are told that " God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish but have ever- 
lastiDg life." What does "perish" mean? In 
what sense did the old world, being overflowed 
with water, " perish " ? We can have no argu- 
ment with one who says, It means that God took 
them to heaven ; that Sodom and Gomorrah are 
now under discipline, and not suffering the ven- 
geance of eternal fire. 

This impressive ordinance of God, Gerizim 
and Ebal, was to keep before the minds of Is- 
rael the truth that the government of God over 
the children of men had inscribed over it, as it 
were, these words, " Behold, therefore, the good- 
ness and the severity of God ; on them which 
fell, severity, but toward thee goodness, if thou 
continue in His goodness ; otherwise thou shalt 
be cut off." If there were any among them who 
were disposed to argue that God was too merci- 
ful to punish men for a few crimes committed in 
this short life ; that He would wink at their 
short comings, that He would not suffer His in- 
finite goodness to be overpowered by His dis- 
pleasure against sin, they must have felt rebuked 



2(4 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZESI AND EBAL. 

when the}' saw one half of the nation gathered 
together to hear the promises of God, and the 
other six tribes employed to read the curses which 
God had threatened against sin. Some ma}^ say, 
No doubt, each tribe would have preferred to 
read the blessings. It may seem hard to you 
that the same six should always stand on Ebal. 
It seems like compelling the same minister to be 
always preaching sermons on punishment, and 
allowing his brother to dispense good tidings. 
But God does not take the same view with men 
of His ministr}^ of wrath ; if He did He Avould 
appoint bad angels only to execute His threat- 
nino^s acijainst him. 

But we may doubt if the angel who cut off 
the first-born of Egypt was any the less amiable 
than the angel who led Joseph and Mary out of 
Egypt with the child Jesus, or that the angel 
who cut off Sennacherib's army, a hundred and 
eightj'-five thousand AssjTians in one night, was 
less lovely than the angel who appeared to Gid- 
eon as lie threshed wheat by the wine-press. 
That is a striking passage in the fifteenth chapter 
of Revelation : " And the seven angels came out 
of the temple clothed in pure and white linen 
and having their breasts girded with golden gir- 
dles." Executioners, in modern literature, are not 
arrayed in white linen or girded with gold. Po- 
ets and painters represent the officers of justice 



THE COCTEINE OF GEBIZIM AND EBAL. 205 

as short, stoufc men, bow-legged, savage. Shake- 
speare has such executionei-s of kings, royal la- 
dies and children. None of God's acts of jus- 
tice are cruel ; so that the executors of them are 
arrayed in ^yhite with golden girdles. 

Will this life be an end of retribution for sin ? 
Such is the expectation of man}'. They pic- 
ture the Most High as employing the agencies 
of woe to make men submissive under Him ; 
having accomplished which they say, He 
will take all who submit, to heaven. All who 
continue to rebel will, they think, endure further 
discipline, b}^ which all of them will be forced 
to yield ; so that the universe will finally be set 
free from sin. 

Who has been his counsellor to teach the Most 
High so beneficient a scheme? We would all 
be willing to see such a happy consummation. 
There would not be one of our race who would 
not say Amen ! to this good hope, did the Scrip- 
tures countenance it. Singular it is that the 
readers- of the Bible have none of them pre- 
vailed on the learned, humane, philanthropic, of 
whom there have been so many in every age, to 
substitute that scheme for the theory of endless 
retribution. If the Word of God furnished the 
semblance of an argument or less than that, of an 
inquiry like that of Job about a future state, 
" If a man die shall he live again ? " may we 



206 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZTM AND EBAL. 

not suppose that some Christian nation would by 
this time have witnessed the formation of a party 
of believers who would have rallied a multitude 
around them ? But the silence of evangelical 
men with regard to any intimation in Scripture 
that the expectation of the wicked will not per- 
ish, is appalling. 

One of the ablest men who has written on the 
subject resorts to mathematics for an argument. 
He says for substance, " Reckon up all the sins 
which a mortal or even a devil can have com- 
mitted, the mortal in his three-score and ten 
years of probation, the fiend in his ten thousand 
years of depravity. A fearful sum. Take the 
largest. Call in as many millions as you will. 
Then think of eternity, which by and by will 
overpass all this, and suppose the following prob- 
lem: — the dividend eternal retribution, the divisor 
the number of sins committed by an individual, 
the quotient the number of years of suffering al- 
lotted to each sin, which in due space of being 
will be millions of years of suffering for each 
sin. What can you say to this ? we are confi- 
dently asked. Any one who is willing to attempt 
to answer had best be at the foot of the cross, 
where the God-man is making expiation for the 
sins of the whole world, the sum of which is 
larger than the small sum above stated. There 
let him propose this question : " How shall we 



THE DOCTRINE OF GEEIZIM AKD EBAL. 207 

escape if we neglect so great salvation ? " Let 
him not feel it necessary to answer questions 
with which some will try to perplex him about 
the heathen, infants, imbeciles, backsliders ; but 
insist on saying after a divine example, " I will 
also ask you one thing," " How shall we escape 
if we neglect so great salvation ? " 

It must be a great salvation if He who came 
into the world to save sinners was God made 
flesh, a propitiation not for our sins onl}^, but for 
the sins of the whole world. Let me repeat an 
illustration used elsewhere. Columbus argued 
that there must be a western continent to bal- 
ance the globe. So we say that tins great salva- 
tion implies that there must be a great damna- 
tion. The unutterable horror with which the 
mind is filled in contemplating endless punish- 
ment may be regarded as having its equivalent 
in the astonishment with which the mind is filled 
in contemplating God made flesh for sinful men, 
going to the cross, thence being the tenant of the 
tomb, delivered for our offences, raised for our 
justification. Let him who tries to measure with 
the eye of an insect, the great gulf fixed to make 
impassable the return of the impenitent dead 
from hell to heaven, first measure with his eye 
the distance traversed by the Incarnate God from 
the throne which was before all things, to close 
the prison-door of lost angels, ere the morning 



208 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 

stars sang togetlier aiicl all tlie sons of God 
sliouted for joy over this world ordained to be the 
scene of man's redemption. Could we institute 
the comparison, we should learn, perhaps, that 
for the Word to make Himself of no reputation, 
and take upon Himself the form of a servant, 
stands first amono^ the thino-s into which ansrels 
desire to look rather than the everlasting pun- 
ishment of those who pierced Him, crucifying 
Him afresh, compelling the remonstrance, " Plow 
often would I have gathered you, — and ye 
would not." 

If we stumble at the assignment of intermin- 
able misery for sin committed in a mere span of 
time, let us ask ourselves why do we begin to 
stumble at this, when there is long before, more 
than enough to confound us. The Bible sa^^s, 
that by one man sin entered into the world and 
death by sin ; that by one man's disobedience 
many were made sinners ; that by one man's of- 
fence death reigned by one ; that by the offence 
of one, judgment came upon all men to condem- 
nation. This has continued for at least five 
thousand eight hundred and seventy-three years ; 
all in consequence of one man's disobedience. 
Reckon, if you can, the misery of the human race 
for these fifty or sixty centuries, the consequence 
of one man's disobedience ; say how long it took 
that one man to commit that one act of disobe- 



THE DOCTEIXE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 209 

dience. Crtii you believe tliat by one mtin's of- 
fence committed in a brief space of time, tliere 
have been fifty or sixtj' centuries of human sin 
and misery ? Believe it or not, the trutli stands 
recorded ; jet men sa}^, God cannot surely in- 
flict ages of misery for the consequences of sins 
committed in a life time ; whereas He has done 
it in consequence of one man's disobedience. 
The added transgressions of each and every sin- 
ner make it no less true that by one man's of- 
fence death reigned by one. 

All through the New Testament there is the 
same parallelism of blessing, and cursing which 
there was in the Old Testament. Gerizim and 
Ebal stand with responsive blessings and curses 
o^n the saint and sinner. The language of the 
blessino's and curses from Gerizim and Ebal were 
not so terrible as the lanojuao^e of the Saviour in 
the New Testament. Revelation does not as- 
sume milder tones as it approaches the evening. 
There are words in the Saviour's discourses re- 
lating to future retribution which we are more 
disposed to read in a lowered tone than anything 
in Deuteronomy. Then we come to the apostle 
Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, in the first 
two chapters of whicli language is brought to the 
highest pitch of intensity in describing the in- 
dignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish 
threatened against every soul that doeth evil. 



210 THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZIM AND EBAL. 

At last comes the beloved disciple and closes 
the sacred book with imagery, because literal 
speech was not adequate to express the intense- 
ness of his conceptions. One expression is used 
by him to denote the future punishment of the 
wicked which has no equivalent in the Old Tes- 
tament : " And said to the mountains, Fall on us, 
and to the hills, Cover us from the face of Him 
that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath 
of the Lamb." Thus we are brought down to 
the end of the world and find the Gerizim and 
Ebal of Deuteronomy extending their symboli- 
cal presence through the last book of the Bible, 
where the waves of a dread ocean come ashore. 

I come now to propose the question in the 
text. If it is in figurative language, the great- 
ness of the theme justifies it. Gerizim and Ebal 
extend their influence down to the boundary line 
of this world and the next. The question is : 
" Are they not on the other side Jordan by the 
way where the sun goeth down?" Is there not 
a Gerizim and Ebal in eternity ? forever a heaven 
and hell ? Do not blessing and cursing follow 
us? Is not God the same on the other side Jor- 
dan by the way where the sun goeth down, as 
He is here ? 

I once looked from the window of a hotel in 
Switzerland on the lake of Geneva, one morning 
just before sunrise, and was astonished to see im- 



THE DOCTEINE OF GEEIZENI AKD EBAL. 211 

ages of mountains in the lake. No mountains 
were near, or in the horizon. An intelligent 
fellow traveler said to me, "They are the Alps. 
You cannot see them, but the refraction of the 
rising sun-light throws down their images upon 
the lake from the upper air." The Bible is a lake 
on the surface of which the light beyond Jordan 
throws down images of thiiiLgs which are there, 
among which are Gerizim and Ebal. 

On this subject of the eternity of retribution 
after death, one consideration has for a long time 
settled the question which used to agitate my 
mind when I thought if it could be just to award 
an endless penalty for sins committed here. 
Leaving to the omniscient Judge many things 
which the light of eternity alone can make plain, 
I said. If the Word was made flesh and suffered 
death for me, and I reject or neglect that propi- 
tiation for my sins, I believe that there is no 
other remedy. He that spared not His own Son, 
will not spare him w^ho treads the blood of that 
Son under foot. We must not think the hein- 
ousness of sin is in the number or character of 
our misdeeds ; but in not believing on Christ. 
No one can be lost who believes in Christ, fla- 
grant, numberless, though his sins may have been. 
Observation and reflection have deepened my 
conviction that more are saved by simple faith in 
Christ at the last than may have been feared ; 



212 THE DOCTRINE OF GEEIZjBI AND EBAL. 

and this I sa}^ without abating one tittle of con- 
viction that too much cannot be said of the haz- 
ard which there is in delajdng compliance with 
the terms of salvation. 

Such cases as the following make a happy im- 
pression on my mind : A 3'oung sailor fell from 
the yard-arm of his ship into the sea. The ship 
was put about, lie was found, but senseless. Re- 
storatives were successful. On regaining his 
consciousness he soon turned over upon his knees 
and uttered a prayer of consecration to Christ, 
saying to those around him, " This is what I 
did when I supposed myself to be drowning. I 
gave my soul to Clirist. I felt that I was ac- 
cepted through that one simple act of faith in 
the Saviour." It will not be your sin that will 
destroy j'ou. Unbelief will be the perdition of 
more under the Gospel than all sins. All the 
curses of Mount Ebal will light on him who had 
the offers of pardon from the Son of God and 
died in unbelief. The blessings of a thous- 
and Mount Gerizims will be imputed to the 
greatest sinner who simply believes in Jesus. 
" Who is wise, and he shall understand these 
things ; prudent, and he shall know them ; for 
the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall 
Avalk in them, but the transgressors shall fall 
therein." 



XII. 
ONLOVma THE UNSEEN REDEEMER. 

" Whom having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, 
yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." — i Peter 
i: 8. 

THE most remarkable illustration of liuman 
love is and always has been, the' personal 
attachment of Christian believers to Jesus Christ. 
The larger part of his Apostles suffered martyr- 
dom from love to Him. The history of Christi- 
anity under the emperors shows that inge- 
nuity was exhausted in the invention of tor- 
tures for them. Letters, hymns and prayers 
written in the early ages, rehearsing the words 
and deeds of the first Christians show, that 
w^hether they were fanatics or otherwise, their 
love to their Lord and Master was unpar- 
alleled. The apostle Paul tells us that from per- 
sonal, love to Christ, he had suffered the loss of 
all things ; and many things had he to lose. He 
lost a lucrative practice as a Roman and Jewish 
lawyer; his reputation was utterly destroyed; 

(213) 



214 ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEEMEE. 

he having no friends left to him but the despised 
Christians. It would seem strange to us if some 
member of the bar in great repute, should be 
publicly beaten with rods by the civil authorities 
and several times stoned; well might he say that as 
a professional man he had suffered the loss of all 
things ; after that, none would entrust their lives, 
fortunes, characters in his hands. His was a 
specimen of the treatment which the followers of 
Jesus of Nazareth endured, from love to Him. 
One specification of their treatment might have 
been expressed in these words: "they were 
tempted." It was not all stones, dens and caves, 
wandering in sheepskins and goatskins ; bland- 
ishments, flattery, tears, the loss of most desirable 
connections, prospects of wealth, reputation, 
fame, solicited many of them ; and we may sup- 
pose that in resisting these things, especially 
when pressed upon them with kindness, disinter- 
ested affection, and gentleness, some of them 
actually suffered more than others did who en- 
dured martyrdom. It was hard parting with en- 
deared friends ; but there were times when some 
of them had to give and receive the last embrace, 
see their friends going back to home and afflu- 
ence, and the sweet securities of law and order, 
and they themselves consigned to want and ob- 
loquy ; homeless ; outcast, among the dens of 
wild beasts. And all this when a single word of 



ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEEMEE. 215 

recantation, abjuring tlie name of Jesus Christ, 
would make their fortune, would put the crown 
of professional or social distinction upon them. 
But their motto was one which was perpetuated 
down to the sixteenth century, used by Lambert 
the martyr when .at the stake for his religion, he 
said, in answer to the men who offered him life 
and liberty if he would sign a recantation, "None 
but Christ, none but Christ." Pliny the younger 
wrote to the Emperor Trajan : " They are accus- 
tomed to meet before daylight, and sing hymns 
to Christ as to God." 

This love to Christ is perpetually mani- 
festing itself from the dawn of Christianity, as 
though the multitude of the heavenly host had 
given the melodj^, and it were learned and sung 
by all who loved the babe of Bethlehem. 

But the most remarkable thing in this love to 
Christ is, that it was felt by those who had never 
known, personally, this wonderful being. Peter 
being then alive, of course there may have been 
others living who were co temporaries of Christ. 
None of them it seems, were included in this 
address. The people to whom Peter now writes 
were not, therefore, a small company of enthusi- 
asts, who by association, with celebrations, lec- 
tures, and mystical ceremonies, had created a 
fictitious kind of enthusiasm among: their own 
clan. Such clans were common, especially when 



216 ox LOVING THE UXSEEX EEDEEISIEE. 

a new teaclier or founder of some school arose. 
But there was no society. These epistles are 
not addressed to any body of people in one place, 
organized, and keeping up each other's zeal and 
love, or even their faith, by their rites, proces- 
sions, harangues. The words of the text are ad- 
dressed to " strangers scattered abroad through- 
out Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithy- 
nia." You will observe, therefore, that it is to 
individuals that these words of the text are ad- 
dressed. They might reach a man in a prison, 
or hidden in a den from persecutors, or working 
in the mines as a slave ; or a solitary believer in 
the household of the emperor ; no meetings for 
exhortation within reach ; forgotten, it may be, 
by all ; yet in the solitary heart of each of these 
strangers, scattered abroad, Peter knew that his 
words would find a response. 

Like a great magnet passing over hea^^s of 
rubbish there would be pieces of steel, which, as 
the attraction went by would turn. And so it 
is now. When this text is read, there are hearts 
which say, " Now we shall hear something about 
Christ." His name is as ointment poured forth. 
His name is " above every name." It is the only 
name which among believers is universal, sover- 
eign. They will differ over the name of every 
thing else, even in religion ; but when it comes to 
this name, there is a power like that of the morn- 



ON LOVIXG THE UXSEEN EEDEEjNIEE. 217 

ing light in nature. May His Spirit guide us as 
it shall now be set forth. 

The subject of my discourse is 

The love of Christians to the unseen Redeemer, 

I. Who is He ? 

One word expresses Him : "Woxdeeeul." 
Within a few weeks, by steam, from any of our 
ports, you could reach a place where a child was 
born who is now at the head of the universe. 
You will not understand this as a fio-ure of 
speech, nor am I indulging in large expressions. 
As you, once an infant, are now at man's estate. 
He is now Lord of all. He w^as a man like us, 
hungry, athirst, asleep, limited in the exercise of 
His powers of mind and body. Yet "all things 
were made by Him, and without Him was not 
any thing made that was made." Now, He has 
" gone unto heaven and is at the right hand of 
God ; angels, authorities, and powers being made 
subject unto Him." He will one day sit as 
Judge of all ; before Him shall be gathered all 
nations, and He shall separate them one from 
another. He is " God manifest in the flesh." 

-11. By His death He made an atone- 
ment FOPw SIN, EE ACHING IN ITS INFUENCE 
FEOM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF TE^IE. 



218 ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEEMEE. 

He was " slain from the foundation of the 
world." 

They who have believed in this unseen Re- 
deemer, have had personal experience of His 
power to effect their peace with God. Had He 
been made known to them merely as a prodigy, 
though the most wonderful of beings, this would 
not have excited their enthusiasm. The powers 
of nature do not so affect the hearts of men as 
Christ has affected them. The}^ believed in Him 
as the God-man whom the apostles dwelt with 
as a personal friend, with v/hom they sat at meat, 
who called them " friends," had compassion on 
their ignorance, prayed for them, laid His hands 
on them and blessed them. They thus believed 
that all which He had been and promised to be 
to His immediate disciples, He would be to them. 
Some of His words, no doubt, were reported by 
ear witnesses; for example, "Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them." That passage re- 
peated, when two or three of them met in a 
desert, created enthusiasm. Take another : "If 
any man love Me my Father will love him, and 
I will loA^e him and will manifest myself to him." 
They lived on those words, no doubt, from day 
to day. Then came those gracious promises: " My 
sheep shall never perish ; " " AH that the Father 
hath given Me shall come to Me ; and him that 



ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEE^IEE. 219 

Cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out." 
'' As My Father hath loved Me, even so have I 
loved 3-0U ; continue ye in my love." Then 
those affectino^ words foretelling^ His death : — 
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friends." '• I lay down 
my life for the sheep." " Every one which seeth 
the Son and belie veth on Him hath everlastino^ 
life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 
Then the story of His betrayal, and His volun- 
tary surrender of Himself, and His furnishing 
the testimony on which His life was taken ; of 
His words and actions on the cross to His mother 
and to the beloved disciple, and the penitent 
thief, and His prayer for His murderers. His 
death. His burial by Joseph and Nicodemus, His 
resurrection attested by the eleven and by other 
companies, and by five hundred brethren at once; 
His ascension, the appearance of the two men 
in white apparel declaring His coming again ; — 
all this made believers love Him, trust in Him, 
"rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable and full of 
glory," and " suffer the loss of all things for 
His name's sake," and die for Him. 

lo'natius bared bis breast to the lions in the 
amphitheatre when led forth to die for the Lord 
Jesus. Polycarp said, " Eighty and six years 
have I served Him and He has never failed me ; 
shall I now forsake Him ? " This was " joy un- 
speakable and full of glory." 



220 ON LOYIXG THE U^'SEEN EEBEEMEE. 

One tiling he could not have said unless he were 
either an arrant imposter, or, divine: " He that 
loveth father or mother more than Me is not 
worthy of Me, and he that loveth son or daughter 
more than Me is not worthy of Me." 

A young father and mother are bending over 
their first-born asleep, and they think of those 
words ; there is one who claims a stronger love 
than they feel for the little child-; not that they 
must not love their little one, but this unseen 
Friend says, " there is more in me to love than 
natural affection can find in that child." The 
young parents acknowledge it and give them- 
selves and their child to their unseen Redeemer. 
Never, never was there such love on earth, never, 
we may safely say, was there such love in heaven 
till redeemed sinners bore it thither. It has been 
well said, that but for sin there would have been 
no minor key in music ; and what would music 
be without that key ? 

The fall of angels, the vacant thrones, their 
harps hung up, inspired angelic strains no doubt, 
with the impassioned wail which so wonderfully 
varies the earthly hallelujah ; but the death of 
Christ and all the melting themes inspired by that 
event, have given to the song of redemption that 
unequalled power which made the writer of the 
Revelation say of it as he listened, " And no man 
could learn that song but the hundred and forty 



OK LOVING THE UNSEEN" KEDEEMEE. 221 

and four thousand wliicli were redeemed from 
amono- men." 

III. The love of Cheistians foe Jesus 
Christ is the same now as eyee. 

This love to an unseen Saviour which Peter 
in the text describes as felt bj those believers to 
whom he wrote, continues to our day. It is a 
love which absorbs every other, supplants every 
other, compensates for the loss of every other. 

There was a 3'oung Christian engaged to be 
united in sacred bonds to one who, on further 
acquaintance, proved not to be as she at first 
supposed, a believer in Christ. It cost her a 
mighty sacrifice to dissolve the tie, as she felt 
constrained to do. She gave up a competency 
and something more ; she sacrificed relationships 
which w^ere inviting, because she could not take 
for her nearest and dearest earthly friend one 
who did not love her Redeemer. And what was 
the consequence ? By this experience that 
young Christian was qualified to write the hymn 
beginning, 

" Jesus, I my cross have taken, 
All to leave and follow Thee ; 
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken. 
Thou henceforth my all shalt be." 

All over the world wherever the name of Je- 



222 ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEEMeE. 

.susis known, there are hearts which love Him 
with this joy which is unspeakable and full of 
glory. Among the powers of nature there is one 
which reminds us of it: The supposed influence 
of the moon over the tides. Dark, and even 
stormy may be the night, and the sky give no 
sign of the moon, yet the mariner in mid ocean 
may feel the influence of the tide, and every 
shore will record its ebb and flow. The sand 
rows on the beach, and the small pools with 
their tiny inhabitants, the lifted keel and the 
floating vessel, witness every six hours its 
changes. He who thus influences the sea by the 
earth's satellite, controls unseen, the hearts of all 
His people, scattered over continents and oceans, 
in islands, deserts, and the city. 

IV. It is noticeable in love to an un- 
seen Christ, that those who haDx nevee 
seen rul loved hljvi as much as those 
WHO WEEE His personal associates. 

Indeed we may go further ; they loved Him 
more than these did when He was yet alive. 
After His ascension, Peter might be expected 
still to love Christ. James and John with Peter 
had peculiar reasons for loving Him. All who 
personall}^ knew Him and were touched by His 
character, words and sufferings, miglit be ox- 



ON LOVIKG THE UNSEEN REDEEMER. 223 

pected to cherish a life-long affection for Him. 
But you will notice in the words of the text and 
context that Peter does not exhort these Chris- 
tians on this subject, — uo, he merely describes 
them and rejoices over them ; he speaks twice of 
their overflowing love to the unseen Christ. 

If love to Christ, then, is not dependent on 
sight, and those who have lived since His day 
have loved Him even more than His first disci- 
ples could before His death and resurrection, 
one thing follows of exceeding great importance 
and interest to us. 

I observe then, 

V. All may love Him. 

This is important to us, because without it the 
subject of love to Christ is of no more interest 
to us than the love of Joseph and Benjamin, or 
of David and Jonathan, or, in profane history, of 
Damon and Pythias. If they to whom Peter 
wrote, scattered everywhere, loved Christ more 
than Peter himself during the Saviour's life ac- 
tually did, we see that love to Christ can be felt 
by us, can be enjoyed by us, as well as by them. 
Joyful thought ! we are included in those to 
whom Peter addressed his epistles, — " to all 
who in every place call on the name of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours: and with 



224 ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEEJVIER. 

those on whom another apostle pronounces that 
benediction : " Grace be with all them that love 
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 

If the characteristic of love to the Saviour is 
love to an unseen Christ, A Christian ought 

NEYEE TO EEEL UNHAPPY AT HiS SUPPOSED 
ABSENCE FBOM HUM. 

We should so feel toward Christ as to Avar rant 
those words beino^ addressed to us when cast 
down : " In whom though now ye see Him not, 
3^et believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory." Let Him manifest Himself 
as much or as little as He pleases, we should not 
allow our feelings to depend on this. ' 

Much of the despoixlency in Christians is 
owing to their not understandiug one object 
which there evidently is in these words : "Whom 
not having seen ye love." We are to love Him 
by faith ; love Him unseen as though we saw 
Him ; for faith is a substitute for sight. " Ye 
see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory." 

FINALLY. If so ^iuch is teue as ee- 

GAEDS THE LOVE OP ChEISTIANS TO THE SA- 
VIOUE, "WE MAY BE ASSUEED THAT THEEE IS 
EECIPEOCAL LOVE ON THE PAET OF ChEIST 
TO THEM. 

Strange would it be if He who is love incar- 



ON LOVING THE UNSEEN EEDEE:MEE. 225 

nate should prove cold and heartless, He who 
inspired His servant John to write such loving 
words to us as we find in His gospel. 

Let us take heed to the whispers of the Holy 
Spirit, whose mission it is to reveal Christ unto 
us. 

His name closes the word of God, who is 
called the Word : " He which testifieth these 
things saith. Surely, I come quickly. Amen. 
Even so, come Lord Jesus. 



XIII. 

ON PASSma BY ANGELS TO RE- 
DEEM MEN, 

" For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him 
the seed of Abraham." — Hebrews 2 : 16. 

Apart of an angelic race, superior to man, 
apostatized from God. No Redeemer 
interposed to help them. The inhabitants of 
this world apostatized from God, and a Redeemer 
took on Him their nature to redeem them. Who 
He was, we learn from these inspired words : "In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
with God and the Word was God. The same was 
in the beginning with God. All things were 
made bj Him, and without Him was not any 
thing made that was made. And the Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
His glory, the glorj^ as of the only begotten of 
the Father full of grace and truth." 

Here is a disclosure ; and tlien a veil is drawn 
over it. Doubtless this is best for us. We could 
not have understood a clearer revelation. As it 

(226) 



ON PASSING BY ANGELS TO EEDEEM MEN. 227 

is, we cannot solve one of the questions which 
human curiosity would ask. He " was with God 
and He was God." If any one will resolve that 
mj^stery, he maj^, perhaps, proceed and explain 
the dark things which multiply as we proceed. 
One who is God " was made flesh and dwelt 
among us." And of Him we are told in the 
text, " He took not on Him the natnre of angels, 
but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." 

Some one, then, in the Jewish line took on Him 
the nature of man, and did not take on Him the 
nature of angels. Who was He ? One is 
spoken of here who existed first not as man or 
angel, but took on Him the nature of man, not 
of angels. He, therefore, has two natures ; one 
of them is ours. But it is implied in the text 
that it was optional with Him which of these 
two natures He should take; In the plainest 
terms, therefore, an incarnation is here declared ; 
and the first chapter of John makes it certain 
that the Divine Word joined human nature to 
Himself, and with these two natures in one per- 
son. He became the Redeemer of men. 

Why did He not for the same purpose for 
which He took on Him our nature, take the na- 
ture of angels? Here is the interesting point 
which the text brings to view. 

Among the spheres which compose our solar 
system, this world is the smallest of the primary 



228 ON PASSING BY ANGELS 

planets but two. But we greatly err if we esti- 
mate the worth of a world by its size. We are 
in the habit of supposing that our Earth must be 
inferior in all respects because it is small. The 
Creator has not adopted such a standard of value. 
The wise men of the East came to Jerusalem no 
doubt expecting that the King of kings was 
was born there ; but they found His birthplace to 
be Bethlehem, which was little among the thous- 
ands of Judah. " He chose David also, and took 
him from the sheepfold, to feed Jacob his people 
and Israel'His inheritance." 

We may expect to find that the Creator has 
made use of this world of a size thus inferior, to 
pour contempt on pride. If He Avho made all 
things took upon Him man's nature, we may feel 
sure that there is in that nature some intrinsic 
excellence and greatness, one proof of which is 
that it is capable of being united with the per- 
son of the Word who was in the beginning with 
God, and was God. 

But so, unquestionably, was the angels' nature; 
for man is a little lower than the angels. Here 
were two fallen races before the eye of the Re- 
deemer, and we cannot doubt that it was optional 
with Him to redeem either of them, or both. 
Why He did not redeem both must be left to 
sovereign wisdom ; to Him who giveth no account 
of any of His matters. Why in deciding to re- 



TO EEDEEM MEN. 229 

deem one of tliem He chose to save man and not 
angels is the subject before ns, not for our opin- 
ion or judgment, but for our contemplation and 
humble fear. 

I. Fallen angels, if redeemed, would 

NO DOUBT BECOME AS GBEAT AND GLOEIOUS 
AS BEFOPvE. 

An angel certainly is as precious as the soul of 
a Hottentot. Why are the inhabitants of Labra- 
dor or of the South Seas redeemed by Christ, and 
not angels ? What can be said of a pagan's soul 
as to its future development and happiness which 
cannot be said of an ano'el redeemed? There 
would have been one consideration at least in 
favor of redeeming an angel. The pagan does 
not know what he has lost. The ang^el is con- 
scions of his depravity. An angel's memory 
surely is worth redeeming. He recollects the 
moment when he waked into life in heaven ; 
when he first looked upon the face of God ; 
when consciousness first possessed him ; when 
he said, What am I ? who am I ? where am I ? 
and joy began to course through him and the 
whispers of divine love soothed him and made 
him acquainted with himself, and the first-born 
of his companions drew near and taught him, 
and at last he came to the full knowledge of 
what existence is. All the succession of the 



230 ON PASSmG BY ANGELS 

heavenly hours, days, j^ears, and centuries, or 
whatever they are called, is remembered by him ; 
his loves, his joys, his discoveries, his first ad- 
ventures into unknown latitudes of bliss open- 
ing still into new and more ecstatic joys ; and 
all those quiet, meditative hours when in com- 
munion with God and his own soul he said, This 
is lieaven, eternity in heaven ; and looking upon 
beings superior to himself and gazing abroad on 
a universe unexplored, he said, " It doth not yet 
appear wlmt we shall be." 

Though it is revolting to the thoughts to con- 
template the condition of fallen angelic beings 
on account of their unspeakable degradation, it 
is only more so than to contemplate Satan, be- 
cause his chiefdom gives him a dignity in our 
eyes, much as we respect a principal bandit, 
while we detest his men. There is no reason to 
doubt that those evil spirits who took possession 
of the souls and bodies of human beings in the 
time of Christ were fallen angels, because Satan 
is called their prince. Moreover, they were an- 
ticipating a daj^ of judgment, which is some con- 
firmatory evidence that they were those for whom 
a day of doom is prepared, when they will be 
sent out into the abyss. It was a legion of fal- 
len angels who had possession of that poor de- 
moniac among, the tombs, crying and cutting him- 
self with stones. It was a fallen angel who tor- 



TO REDEEM MEN". 231 

mented that child at the foot of the mount of 
transfiguration ; and they were fallen angels who 
begged to be sent into the swine. 

We see in this world enough of degradation 
made by sin to keep ns from doubting the power 
of sin to degrade fallen angels into devils, and 
devils into alliance with swine. But the mem- 
or}^ of innocence and of bliss in heaven no doubt 
remains in them. What a good work it would 
have been to redeem that memory and restore 
that angel. How sad, one might say, to think 
that Christ would not redeem him, but went af- 
ter South Sea Islanders and the Aborigines of the 
British Isles, than whom none was ever more 
lost to shame, or more distant from God. And 
what a wicked world this, which He redeemed, 
has proved. How hard to bring any portion of 
it right and to keep it so. In countries where 
the Gospel has had influence for generations, 
scenes are enacted which^equal the deeds of bar- 
barous tribes. After a long conflict between 
good and evil in this world, the end will be that 
the earth and the works that are therein shall be 
burned up. Thus far the few are saved; the 
many hate God. 

II. But in reply it may be said, His suc- 
cess MIGHT HAVE BEEN NO BETTER HAD 

Christ made redemption for angels in- 
stead OF FOR MEN. 



232 OK PASSING BY ANGELS 

Suppose that Christ had become angelic in- 
stead of becoming flesh, taking the nature of an- 
gels instead of ours, and in their abode had lifted 
up His voice, '' Repent ye and believe the Gos- 
pel ;" " Behold I stand at the door and knock ; " 
" Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden and I will give you rest/' " The Spirit of 
the Lord is upon me, to open the prison doors, to 
set at liberty them that are bound;" and then 
that He had suffered an ignominious punishment 
there as He did here, stooping as low in shame 
as on Calvary, bearing some awful emblem of 
woe as He bore the cross ; and thus, making 
atonement for angels, had pointed them to 
heaven through His sufferings for them ; would 
they have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope 
set before them ? would there have been a for- 
mer occupant of a throne in heaven but would 
have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and been 
saved ? 

While we cannot settle this question, it may 
be well to ask, What has His success been with 
men who have actually been slipping on 
the brink of perdition? How has it been in 
our congregations ? Are there any among your 
acquaintances who have been brought near to 
deatli and who in their own just apprehension 
would have perished had they died, but are now 
as careless as ever, as far from God, as ignorant 



TO REDEEM MEI^". 233 

of Christ? What would keep fallen angels from 
saying in answer to kind and earnest appeals, 
" I know all this, but I do not feel it ; how am I to 
believe in Christ; how can I love Him; how 
can I love God, with such a heart as mine ? " and 
would they not say this up to the last moment 
of probation, as members of Christian congrega- 
tions do when they come to their end ? 

Angels might have invented objections to Him 
as men did ; some might go so far as to deny 
His Godhead and incarnation, and ask whether 
a good God would let His innocent Son visit 
such an abode, to suffer and die for devils ; and 
what virtue there could be in the sufferings of 
one for the sins of others ; and whether it is just 
to substitute an innocent being for the guilty ? 
If any one supposes that every fallen angel 
would at once have accepted the offers of Christ 
and would have returned to his allegiance with 
godly sorrow and repentance, it may be asked 
why men in full view of perdition refuse to ac- 
cept pardon by Christ ? Does any one say, The 
experience of the infernal prison and the pros- 
pect of returning to heaven would prevail where 
all other reasons might have been fruitless? 
Being in the prison would not of itself change 
the feehngs of the sinner toward God. Some 
might think it would. But a feeling of degra- 
dation and humiliation, of having been a con- 



234 oiT PASsmG by angels 

vict, of going back to the old service and scenes 
with the recollection of apostasy is no prepara- 
tion to accept forgiveness. 

We are inclined to think that if rational crea- 
tures called to repentance are treated as free 
agents, they stand a better chance to accept for- 
giveness and the offer of restoration in such a 
vi^orld as this, than in a place where they have 
been subjected to ignominious torture. In this 
world, no distinction is made by the common 
providence of God between the evil and the 
good; but the same sun and rain, the fruits of 
the earth and all the blessings of life come alike 
to the good and to the sinner. Therefore, however 
great our sins against God may be, we need none 
of us feel abandoned, or made ignominious. 
We cannot conceive of more favorable circum- 
stances than ours for accepting the offers of par- 
don ; or a condition less likely to predispose the 
mind toward accepting them than the loss of 
heaven would be, and the degradation of being - 
thrust down to hell. 

It is seriously to be questioned whether fallen 
angels ever could be disposed by their punish- 
ment to love God. We will not argue the 
point, for it is not debatable. They never will, 
and whether they ever would requires more 
knowledge than we possess to decide. But, per- 
haps it may be said, one reason why Christ did 



TO EEDEEM ]me:n". 235 

not take upon Him the nature of angels to re- 
deem tliem is, that having fallen into the pit they 
could not consistently with the laws of their na- 
ture be recovered; that an intelligent being sub- 
jected to such punishment vrould not accept any 
efforts to save him, or if saved, that his recovery 
would not exalt the grace of God so much as the 
restoration of the effeminate races of men. 
While we recognize this as a possible second 
cause, we must not forget that the power and 
grace of God could overcome all such second 
causes ; that the God who found a ransom for 
man could find a way of redeeming lost angels ; 
but that being hopelessly lost the sinning angel 
is given over to the direct operation of natural 
laws ; these laws being such as are now de- 
scribed. While God is not hindered by natural 
laws from doing His pleasure. He does not vi- 
olate them ; but He can find a way to maintain 
and even exalt them while He suspends them as 
to the sinner himself; which we see was done 
by the atonement. So we see this world won- 
derfully adjusted as a probationary state ; every- 
thing in it says, "Be ye reconciled to God." 

Mercies and af&ictions come hand in hand to 
our dwellings and our hearts, and the affliction 
seems to be equally our friend with mercy ; all 
things being arranged to spare our feelings of 
pride and shame, making it reputable and be- 



236 ON PASSING BY ANGELS 

coming to be a ChristiaD, instead of its being like 
standing in the stocks or coming out of a peni- 
tentiary, or going into one in joining tlie Chris- 
tian clmrcli. Without making any statement 
which would properly be construed as limiting 
the power of divine grace, we are justified in 
saying that according to the laws which govern 
free agents, it was a more hopeful work to redeem 
man, than the angels who kept not their first 
estate. 

He who took not on Him the nature of angels 
has not met with these results which reason 
would have predicted. Jesus Christ has not won 
the hearts of the nations, or the hearts of any 
one of them, even where His Gospel is perfectly 
understood. He knew from the beginning that 
it would be so. He knew it when He was about 
to make the atonement. It is a sad representa- 
tion for us to say that He will finally console 
Himself by declaring that on the whole He is 
glad that things are no worse, that as many are 
saved as could be expected, and though He re- 
grets His failure to save all. He is grateful that 
so many have accepted His offers. 

Christ will never be the object of commisera- 
tion, of sympathy and condolence. " These 
\Aords spake Jesus and lifted up His eyes to 
heaven and said. Father, the hour is come ; glo- 
rify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify 



TO REDEEM MEK. 237 

tliee. As thou liast given Him power over all 
flesh that He may give eternal life to as many as 
thou hast oiven Him." While the atonement is 
sufficient for all, and all a?:e invited to avail them- 
selves of it, there is a certain portion of the race 
for whom it is efficient who will assuredly be 
saved ; and of course the Saviour had special re- 
ference to them when He gave Himself a ran- 
som for all. He " is the Saviour of all men, 
specially of those that believe." 

We cannot find fault with tlus on the ground 
of its being partial, unless we begin further back 
and impugn the justice of God in passing byfal-. 
len angels and determining to provide for the 
salvation of men. He did n9t take upon Him- 
self the nature of auo-els : He mio-ht have done 
so ; He left them where He found them, where 
they had chosen to be. He finds all men in a 
state of ruin ; if they will acknowledge it and 
avail themselves of His interposition in their be- 
half, they may be saved ; but some will not be- 
lieve, and they prefer to run the risk and take 
the consequences. It is optional with God to 
let them all perish, or interpose and make some 
willing to believe. He does no injustice to any 
if He prevails on some ; none can find fault with 
God for leaving them to have their own way ; 
it will Avith perfect truth be said to every one 
who fails to be saved, " Ye would not come to 



238 ON PASSING BY ANGELS 

Me that je might have life." Eveiy one is as 
religious as, on the whole, he wishes to be. 

Ifc is the great mystery of wisdom that while 
God does His pleasure, it is in such a way that 
every man exercises his free choice. 

III. Those who do not accept redemp- 
tion PEOVIDED foe them BY THE SON OF 

God are to be associated hereafter with 

A RACE OF sinners WHOM ChRIST DID NOT 
REDEEM. 

Nothing surely is better adapted to make us 
accept the offers of the Gospel ; for if Christ 
passed them by and came to save us, no fancy 
can picture what it must be to receive from His 
lips a consignment to their abode and to their 
society. It is well known on the authority of 
the early Christian writers that the power of evil 
spirits over men was wonderfully abridged with 
the coming of Christ. He told the seventy whom 
He sent out, when they returned and told Him, 
"Lord, even the devils are subject unto us 
through thy name," " I beheld Satan as light- 
ning fall from heaven." Their power contin- 
ued for a while after the coming of Christ ; as 
we see in the New Testament, where we learn 
their awful malice and also their power, no 
doubt that we may be warned lest we fall into 



TO EEDEE^r ]MEN. 239 

their liancls. If they took possession of a human 
being, a legion of them at once, they must be 
cruel and brutal ; nor can fancy picture the dire- 
ful miseries of the poor victims who fell into 
their hands. 

People do not like to be reminded of such a 
feavfid liability; but if too painful to be re- 
minded of it in a world of mercy, let us think 
what it must be to have the last sentence upon 
all who did not love Christ sufficiently to give 
Him common hospitality. " I was an hungered 
and ye gave me no meat." Then mercy will 
have finished all her invitations and returned for- 
ever to the bosom of her injured, her slighted 
God. 

IV. The subject opens to us a view 

OF HUMAN happiness FOR ALL WHO ACCEPT 
OF SALTATION. 

If the Redeemer sought the greater amount 
of happiness in thos^ for whom He decided to 
make atonement. He surely will find it in us 
who enter heaven, not as a recovered seat from 
which we were ignominiously expelled, but a 
world new, untried, awakening in us sensations 
of wonder and joy which now it doth not enter 
into the heart of man to conceive. There will 
be a quality in our joy which could never be 



240 ON PASSING BY ANGELS 

known to those who fell from heaven. And shall 
we lose it ? Are we looking diligently lest any 
man fail of the grace of God ? '' And these shall 
go away into everlasting punishment, prepared" 
(not for them, but) " for the devil and his an- 
gels." 

God exercises the same sovereignty now in 
choosing whom to save which He did in choos- 
ing men rather than angels. There is often a 
feeling of Avonder at the class of people who 
are called into the kingdom of God, and at the 
same time astonishment at the omission of 
many whom we should consider an acquisition, 
and creditable to Him who saves them. Look- 
ing into the community we may often question 
why certain persons of remarkable endowments 
are not brought into the number of the faithful, 
while some are added to it whom we never would 
have chosen. So in the Christian church, we see 
some who we cannot doubt are regenerate per- 
sons, but it requires forbearance and Christian 
charity to regard them as members of the body 
of Christ: and some are passed by whom we 
would choose first if the selection had been con- 
fided to our judgment and taste. We forget 
that, perhaps, to the searcher of hearts we and 
those interesting people give more occasion for 
forbearance than those who repel us. But 
whether it be so or not, we must apply our text, 



TO REDEEM MEN. 241 

and remember Him who " took not on Him the 
nature of angels but the seed of Abraham." 
The wise, the mighty, the noble, are not all the 
subjects of the divine call ; indeed " not many " 
of them are so distinguished ; but " base things, 
and things which are nob hath God chosen to 
bring to nought things that are, that no flesh 
may glory in His presence." Lady Huntington 
said that she thanked God for the letter " m," 
without which the Scripture must have read, 
" not any noble are called." 

It will exalt the "grace of God to behold high 
in honor and power hereafter, some whom we 
thought hardly worth saving except as objects of 
compassion, and however much joy there may 
have been among the angels of God at their re- 
pentence, it made little sensation here. "And, 
behold, there are last that shall be first." Let us 
take heed how we despise one of these little 
ones. Find a soul in whom there are Scriptural 
evidences of regeneration, and it is one whom 
Almighty God has quarried and hewn, and is 
preparing for some honorable place in His build- 
ing which that soul will fill with a most remark- 
able adaptation. As the stone which the buildei-s 
refused is become the head of the corner, so will 
it be with much of the material in the whole 
building. And, therefore, if we are highly cul- 
tivated or possess great natural endowments, it 



242 ON PASSING BY ANGELS 

does not increase our prospect of being saved ; 
for unless we are humble God will pass us by ; 
" for verily He took not on Him the nature of 
angels." " He will beautify the meek with sal- 
vation." Perhaps one reason why angels are 
forever passed b}^ while to the poor the Gospel 
is preached, and very common people are made 
kings and priests unto God, is to show all the 
subjects of God's government, that none are too 
high for God to reach if they sin, none too pre- 
cious for Him to spare if they keep not their first 
estate. 

V. There are limits to mercy and pro- 
bation. 

While we must ascribe this wholly to the sov- 
ereign pleasure of God, we perceive that apos- 
tacy makes recovery in the Scriptural sense im- 
possible. " It is impossible for those who were 
once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly 
gift, — if they shall fall away to renew them 
again to repentance." Hence apostate angels 
were less likely to be redeemed, and we have 
seen that they were not recovered. Here we 
have an argument against probation after death. 
If Christ fails to redeem us in this world, the 
abandonment of fallen angels who were once on 
probation shows us the probability that re- 



TO EEDEEM ISIEN. 243 

demption with us will cease forever. Cousign- 
ment to the company and doom of those who fell 
from heaven confirms this anticipation. Punish- 
ment is not the power of God and the wisdom 
of God unto salvation. Angels have not been 
made better by punishment. They have sunk 
to a level with the swine among' the Gadarenes. 
Christ crucified is the power of God and the 
wisdom of God. "Neither is there salvation in 
any other." 

We are pp.esexted by this subject with 

A VIEW OF the FUTUEE COMPANY OF THE 
GOOD. 

We are going to dwell with the unfallen sons 
of God ; — 

*• And heaven He gives us to possess 
Whence those apostate angels fell." 

Only two orders of beings, angels and men, 
are represented as being in heaven. This world 
seems unlikely to be repaired, at least for our 
use; for we are destined for the metropolis, 
where the throne of God and the Lamb is. "Fa- 
ther, I will tliat they whom thou hast given me 
be with me where I am." We are to behold His 
glory. We are to be the redeemed whom Christ 
came to save, and passed by the former occupants 



244 ON PASSING BY ANGELS TO REDEEM MEN. 

of thrones in heaven. You will instruct the un- 
fallen sons' of God how to love and praise Him 
who created them, and redeemed us to vie with 
them in service. Then do not fail to be of the 
number of the redeemed. Make your calling 
sure. Think what it must be to spend eternity 
with those who lost heaven and to be subjected 
to their taunts ! 

" Seize the kind promise while it waits, 
And march to Zion's heavenly gates, 
Believe, and take the promised rest. 
Obey, and be forever blest." 



XIV. 

TEE BROKEN IN HEART HEALED: 

THE STARS NUMBERED 

AND NAMED. 

A THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 

" He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their womids. 
He telleth the number of the stars ; he calleth them all by their names." 
— Psalm 147 : 3, 4. 

WITH New Eiigiand people the liistories of 
the Annual Thaiisgiviiig days from child- 
hood would be a good epitome of life. No recol- 
lections of childhood and youth are more vivid. 
The weeks of vacation, of visits paid or received, 
the excursions and sports, the preparations for the 
feast assailing every sense, the rich joy afforded by 
being sent on errands of love to the needy, 
the visits to the market-places where nature 
seemed to have brouo-ht toi^ether her stores 
as though for some great sacrifice, the throng 
of people and vehicles in the streets, show- 
ing that some great movement was going on, 

(245) 



246 THE BEOKEN IN HEAET HEALED: 

the innocent satisfaction of being employed, — 

" Something between a hindrance and a help," 
to do a little service the evening before the im- 
portant day, the careful observance of the 
weather signs, the necessity of being detained 
from meeting by pressing need of your service at 
home, or for errands, or if jou. went to church, 
the demonstration in the singing seats, the pleas- 
ures of a good conscience in being in the house 
of God and not at the games on the Common, 
and the satisfaction in hearing something from 
the pulpit which was not so admonitory as 
usual, and then the grand climax around the 
table where feasting and merriment were suc- 
ceeded by the household games till tired nature 
welcomed forgetfulness in sleep, all combined 
to make Thanksgiving Day to many of you as 
full of true enjoyment as probably any festival 
of any kind, in any nation, in any age of the 
world. 

So you grew up, and each returning Thanks- 
giving was better than the last, and was height- 
ened by the return of one and another who had 
gone out from the homestead. Then the little 
high chairs, long disused were brought down from 
the attic, with the forgotten cradle for one who 
like a diamond added to a full dress, was last, and 
least, and best. 

We loved to hear the minister read some of 



THE STAES NUJVIBEEED AND NAMED. 247 

those five or six concluding Psalms, in which 
every imaginary thing is called upon to praise 
God, and which blazing forth with joy and 
thanksgiving, seemed like the last piece in the 
exhibition of fireworks on the other great festi- 
val of tlie year when the heavens were ablaze 
with the closino: outburst of the demonstration. 
Perhaps never in childhood and youth was there 
more enjoyment crowded into the same space. 
And so, from year to year, the keen sense of 
pleasure grew more intense, being helped by 
memory and anticipation. 

As Ave became older we were less turbulent in 
our joy ; the duties and responsibilities of life 
looked in upon us, one by one, with serious face. 
Then came the first great sorrow, and at the fes- 
tival there was a vacant chair, and you began to 
wonder why you ever thought Thanksgiving 
Day the best in the year. 

Some of the family were far off and could not 
return , and one and another had gone, alas ! for 
us, where thanksgiving had become their cease- 
less employment. And when years were multi- 
plied the festival had a large memorial tablet 
with inscriptions of lost ones, of changes, of 
sorrows, the recollection of all which, mixed 
with natural anticipations of thickening troubles, 
made Thanksgiving season a time of deep reli- 
gious thought, never more profitable, yet clad in 



248 THE BEOKEN IN HEART HEALED : 

russefc garb iDstead of gay colors. At the same 
time, probably no one who has experienced all this 
and has made right improvement under it, will 
fail to testify that such sorrow was better than 
laughter, or that in the multitude of his thoughts 
within him, there are consolations and comforts 
which he would not exchange for hilarity, not 
even for the innocent pleasures of his child- 
hood. 

Let not the 3'oung think by any means that 
Thanksgiving Day turns into a day of mourning 
as we grow old; for on the contrary, it may be 
increasingly a day of deeper, richer joy. We 
ahva^^s regret to have the season of blossoms 
end, and to look on the trees, recently laden with 
beaut}^ and fragrance, of a sudden changed to 
a sombre state. But in that change, Spring has 
taken an exulting step. The trees are 'more 
precious than under their flowery crown. 

For, as we advance in life, we have an accu- 
mulated debt of gratitude for the past, with its 
ever growing experience of lovingkindness and 
tender mercy; for capacitj^ of enjoyment, for 
treasures not lost but laid up for us; for in- 
creased qualification to do good and to make 
others happy ; nor can we forget the goodness 
of God to our childhood ; the care taken of us, 
the friends we had, aud special favors of preser- 
vation and blessing when we were heedless and 



THE STAES NUMBEEED AKD NAMED. 249 

uutliankful. So that when the moons of life 
wane we must remember that they are hasten- 
ing to new moons, and that to them who fear 
God it will be so without end. 

It will be safe to say, that amid all the festiv- 
ity of these occasions, the most enviable happi- 
ness will be possessed b}^ some who are reminded 
by them, of the various dealings of God with 
them in years j)ast. Perhaps, if we should be 
called upon by different classes to hear their 
reasons for thanksgiving, none would be urged 
more earnestly than the wonderful ways in which 
the God of all comfort who comforteth them that 
are cast down, has comforted many who were in 
tribulation. It would seem to us among the 
wonderful things of God, how He healeth the 
broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. 

But what have the stars to do with the broken 
in heart, or comforts with the number and names 
of the heavenly bodies ? 

There is a remarkable conjunction of ideas in 
the two verses in the text. It seems a very sud- 
den, abrupt transition from one to the other, 
was it intended to be so ? Or was there an as- 
sociation of ideas and a real connection between 
the thought of divine power in healing broken 
hearts, and the knowledge and ordering of the 
heavenly bodies ? 

Without attempting to answer this assuredly, 



250 THE BEOKEN IN HEART HEALED: 

we are at liberty to examine whetlier there be 
any connection between the two by fair inter- 
pretation. Can we pass from one to the other 
by any perceived analogies ? 

How may it be made apparent that it is the 
same God that healeth the broken in heart and 
bindeth up their Avonnds, who.telleth the num- 
ber of the stai's and calleth them all by their 
names ? 

I. It requires the same divine knowl- 
edge TO HEAL THE BROKEN IN HEART, AS TO 
TELL THE NUMBER OF THE STARS AND CALL 
THEM BY NAME. 

When we say this, we speak far within the 
truth. 

Tlie number of the stars is to the divine mind 
a simple matter of arithmetic, however compli- 
cated they may be to our apprehension. 

They stand apparent to Him whose all seeing 
eye takes them in at one view. 

But before we proceed, let us consider what 
power it is to do this. For although to the unaided 
eye there are not more than six thousand heavenly 
bodies, yet science discloses a multitude in tlie 
hosts of heaven which is beyond comprehension, 
and even fancy cannot convey any adequate idea 
of them. The language of science here is itself 



THE STAES NUMBEEED AND NAMED. 251 

appalling. For when we see the expressions, 
thousands of millions of millions, we give up all 
attempt at grasping the sum. We should not 
feel it if tile astronomer made a mistake of sev- 
eral millions. So when Sir William lierschel 
tells us that he has penetrated with his tele- 
scope seventy-five million times further than 
with the naked eye, and can see stars the near- 
est of v/hich is fifteen billions of miles from us, 
that is, a hundred and seventy million times the 
distance of the sun from the earth, and that the 
light of some of the nearest neighbors to that 
star, traveling one hundred and ninety-two thou- 
sand miles a second, must have set out seven 
hundred thousand years ago; that in a portion 
of the Milky Way, not larger than one tenth o£ 
the moon's disc, he computed that there were 
twenty thousand stars, and that by the most 
moderate estimate the number of stars in the 
whole firmament reached by the telescope can- 
not be less than one hundred millions, and that 
bej'ond these there are clusters and nebulee which 
have not been resolved, and that each of the fixed 
stars which can be seen has a system of unseen 
worlds revolving about ifc, with great voids be- 
tween them to keep the planets from disturbing 
each other, billions of miles being necessary for 
this purpose, we have an idea of creatorship, and 
of the extent of the universe, and of divine cm- 



252 THE BEOKEN IN HEART HEALED: 

niscience which, as David ssljs, " is too wonder- 
ful " for us ; it is " high," we " cannot attain un- 
to it." The astronomers themselves feel and 
confess their weakness. They washed to meas- 
ure the space through which one of those distant 
heavenly bodies moved. Could they ascertain 
this, however small it might be, they could cal- 
culate its orbit, size, distance and rate of motion. 
They took for a base line the distance from 
Greenwich to the Cape of Good Hope, and drew 
imaginary lines from the extremities of that base 
line to get an angle ; but in vain ; there -was no 
angle at the star, and the star did not seem to 
move. Their base line therefore proving too 
short, they took one represented by the diameter 
of the earth's orbit, that is measuring from the 
place where the earth is on the first of Januarj^, 
to where it is on the first of Jul}' , a distance of 
one liundred and ninety million six hundred 
thousand miles. Even then they could not see 
an appreciable movement in that most remote 
orb. 

At last, in 1839, two astronomers succeeded in 
finding a movement in a star, but it was only 
one second in a degree. The base line was still 
too short for more distant explorations. 

"Is there any number of his armies? and on 
whom doth not his light arise ? " How can 
broken hearts, though every Ijuman heart were 



THE STARS NUMBERED AND NAMED. 253 

broken, find any representation in such enor- 
mous measurements as these ? 

The answer is this : The God who can span 
from earth to the remotest world and then sweep 
that radius through all space, and number and 
name those heavenly bodies, can easily know ev- 
ery earthly mourner. He who follows that swift 
traveler in the heavens, Arcturus, with his fifty- 
four miles each second, or three times faster than 
our earth, knows our wanderings, and all the 
succession of our sorrows. 

There may not have been more broken hearts 
tliau there are stars; 3'et the number is such 
that none but the power which numbers the 
heavenly bodies can comprehend them. But in 
those hearts there have been more wounds which 
needed to be healed than there are stars. It is 
not so great a thing to number the stars as to 
search the hearts and try the reins of the chil- 
dren of men. 

IT. ' The same divine 'wisdom which ar- 
ranges THE heavens, overrules OUR INDt- 
VXDUAL AFFAIRS. 

We may be tempted to think that there is no 
pLm or reason in the things which happen to us, 
for they sometimes throw us into confusion, our 
desolation is apparently wild and reckless. But 



254 THE BEOKEN IN HEAET HEALED: 

it is easy to show that all which happens to us is 
ordered by a plan, notwithstanduig the seeming 
littleness of our affairs when compared with the 
extent of the universe and the number of worlds. 
Indeed the astronomical view rather tends to dis- 
hearten us unless we call in the aid of faith. To 
lielp our faith, look at the minute things which 
God has made ; we see in them the same God at 
work as in tlie celestial spheres. The micro- 
scope reveals a hidden color of great beauty on a 
beetle's wing, curious form and order on the 
scale of a fish, prismatic colors on a particle of 
dust, architectural design in the tiniest shell ; 
which all the worlds above us do not surpass as 
products of divine handicraft. We feel the 
power of God in the revelations of the micro- 
scope as much as in those of the telescope. 
Some who have been most distinguished in the 
use of the telescope go farther, and say that 
the microscope by its disclosures has affected 
them more than has the telescope. Perhaps this 
was the effect of contrast, but surely we know of 
nothiuGf in God which affects us more than that 
the High and Lofty One that inliabiteth eternity 
and who dwells in the high and holy place de- 
clares that He dwells also with him who trembles 
at His word. If God chooses to manifest His 
glory in this way, surely we must not make ob- 
jection. We must not say to our Lord, " Thou 



THE STARS NUMBEEED AND NAMED. 255 

slialt never wash my feet." Especially when 
Christ Himself teaches us that not a sparrow 
falleth to the ground withDut our Father, and 
that the Yevy hairs of our head are all numbered, 
we must not hesitate to think that the Creator 
of the worlds is to each of us the God of provi- 
dence, that He ^telleth" our "wanderings," 
puts our " tears into " His " bottle," and that they 
are " in " His " book." So that each one may 
confidently say, " When my spirit was over- 
whelmed within me. Thou knewest my path." 
Nor can we refuse to believe in the perfect 
knowledge and watchful providence of God in 
our affairs when we read, "For there is not a 
word in my tongue, but lo ! O Lord thou know- 
est it altogether." " Thou understandest my 
thoughts afar off." 

The God who comprehends the spaces of the 
universe and peoples them, is not only able to com- 
prehend us, but He who has made order His first 
law among the spheres, has reduced every thing 
relating to us into a wise arrangement in which 
there is nothing confused. We may therefore 
feel assured that He who lias made of this seem- 
ing infinitude of worlds one great system, and 
creates every atom by a perfect pattern and in 
reference to a general design, has also a wise pur- 
pose in breaking and binding up our hearts. 

Probably that which will most affect us here- 



256 THE BROKEN IN HEART HEALED: 

after with a sense of divine wisdom and power 
as well as goodness, will be our personal liistor}^ 
We shall be better acquainted with this than 
with any thing else. We shall be able to judge 
concerning this better than with things foreign 
to us, and perhaps this will be our chief wonder, 
that the God who made Arcturus, Orion, Pleia- 
des, and the chambers of the South, did actually 
consult for each of us ; that He who sends the 
comet on his errands round this measureless 
space and secures its retuni at the appointed min- 
ute did. watch over the heedless steps of your 
childhood, and that He who maketh peace in his 
high places, so that these worlds, many of them 
crossing each other's track, do not interfere, has 
made jonv orbit, and had regard to all its dan- 
gerous exposures, and brought you safely on 
your wa}^, while not for one moment 3'ou had an 
absolute control of yourself, or defence against 
destruction. 

We shall see that stupendous as the universe 
is in its plan, the history of our redemption up 
to the hour when you will be presented faultless 
before the presence of His glory with exceeding 
joy, involves more that is astonishing than the 
stars, and that He who is " the brightness of the 
Father's glory," and is now " upholding all 
things by the word of His power," by Himself 
.purged your sins, and then, and not till then as 



THE STARS NUIVIBEEED AND NAMED. 257 

God and man, sat down on the right hand of the 
majesty on high, thus declaring human redemp- 
tion to be the chief of all His works. 

Let every one, therefore, w^ho has been called 
to great sorrow, rejoice that God has been occu- 
pied with his affairs even though it be by afflic- 
tion. For in the creation of worlds, no doubt 
there is great confusion at first. " The earth w^as 
without form and void and darkness Avas upon 
the face of the deep," and a spectator might 
have tliought that annihilation was coming 
sooner than order and beauty. 

We feel that our losses and sorrows will de- 
stroy us; but not so if we love God. We are 
" of more value" not only than " many sparrows," 
but many worlds. Indeed those billions of fixed 
stars with all their planets considered as mere 
matter, are not worth your soul. They cannot 
love God, nor can they glorify Him as much as 
your redemption and salvation. Were the ques- 
tion to arise whether to save you all those 
orbs shall perish, the answer has already been 
given, in that He who made them has given 
Himself for you, and " He that spared not His 
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, 
how shall He not with Him also freely give us 
all things ? " " He that built the house hath 
more honor than the house ; " therefore, if the 
Maker of suns and planets gave Himself for 



258 THE BBOKEN IK HEAET HEALED : 

your sins, if 3^011, every time you pray, make 
mention of a sacrifice for your soul more costly 
than all this astronom}^, do not think that when 
it is said that H-e who binds up broken li^arts 
numbers the stars and calls them all by their 
names, tliere is emy exaggeration. If there be 
exaggeration it is on the other side, in compar- 
ing the material universe with your incompara- 
ble being, as a son, an heir, of God, a joint heir 
with Christ. 

When we travel throughout this great ex- 
panse of suns and planets, wearing, each of us, 
a glorified body like unto the Son of God, we 
shall perhaps find that to be a member of the 
human family redeemed by Christ, "which is 
tlie head of all principality and power, is the 
chief distinction among the creatures of God. 

Reflect on the wisdom and power of the Most 
High in the waj^s by which He has comforted 
3-0U. He has compensated 3'ou for losses, or 
made them the means of good which is worth 
all it cost. He has shed abroad in your heart a 
peace wliich passe th all understanding. *He has 
made some of your sorrows like a discovered 
star, a centre to some system of truth, or new 
order of~ things in your life revolving around 
that affliction. None but God could do this, 
" who turneth the shadow of death into the 
morning," who giveth " joy for mourning and 



THE STARS NUMBERED AND NAMED. 259 

the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
ness." 

The more we reflect upon it the less shall we 
be surprised at the connection of these two 
verses seemingly so unlike. For the God who 
may have sowed the year for you with sorrow, 
is the God who planted the heavens with those 
heavenly bodies which make up the several con- 
stellations, all liaving a plan and order, as in the 
purpose of God your trials have, which at last 
will evolve themselves into a cluster to the praise 
of Him who holds the seven stars in His right 
hand. 

It is better to have hearts broken, and to have 
God heal them than that they should not have been 
broken, better to be wounded and have God bind 
us up, than not to have been wounded. Look- 
ing back upon our troubles and seeing how they 
helped us on to heaven, and finding again, as 
many will, all whom they lost for a season, we 
shall siiy that if there be one cause of thanks- 
giving above another in our personal experience, 
it is, that a faithful God broke our hearts to heal 
them ; wounded us, to bind us up. 

But, if we have not been afflicted, can we on 
such an occasion as this ; can we, in view of un- 
mingled happiness in the past, derive instruc- 
tion and comfort from this theme ? 

Yes, for if you love God, losing these bless- 
ings will work for your good. 



260 THE beoke:5t in heart healed: 

We are sometimes made to sigh even when 
we are merrj. "Surely in 'laughter the heart is 
sad." On every annual festival we involuntarily 
repeat, What changes another year may bring ! 
But they who love God are sure that nothing 
will happen to them b}^ His appointment which 
will not be for the purpose of enlarging the 
sphere of their spiritual vision. Christian peace 
and joy, therefore, are well founded ; they are 
rational. It is not fanciful to suggest that every 
miraculous gift bestowed on the apostles has a 
spiritual counterpart in the experience of all 
who are born of the Spirit. 

Our Saviour, speaking of His own marvellous 
Avorks, says to the apostles, " And greater works 
than these shall ye do, because I go to my Fa- 
ther." 

_ That we do not err in supposing that there is 
a designed connection between these two pas- 
sages, and that the contemplation of the heavens 
is here designed to illustrate the wisdom and 
power of God in His treatment of the afflicted 
whom He loves, we have only to recall the fol- 
lowing Avords : " Lift up 3'our e3"es on high," 
says the Great God, " behold, who hath created 
these things? that bringeth out their hosts by 
number ; He calleth tbem all by their names 
b}^ the greatness of His might, for that He is 
strong in power, not one faileth. Why say est 



THE STARS NUMBERED AND NAMED. 261 

thon, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way 
is hid from tlie Lord, and my judgment is pas- 
sed over from my God ? Hast thou not known, 
hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, 
the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, 
fainted not neither is weary? There is no 
searching of His understanding. He giveth 
power to the faint ; and to them that have no 
might He increaseth strength." 



XV. 



THE REMOVAL OF ISRAEL'S CLOUD 
TO TEE REAR. 

"And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed 
and went behind them ; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their 
face, and stood behind them." — Exodus 14 : ig. 

ON the border of the Red sea the children of 
Israel lifted ii.p their eyes, and behold the 
Egyptians marched after them, and they were 
sore afraid. Six hnndred chosen chariots were 
there and with them all the chariots of Egypt, 
and captains over every one of them. Destruc- 
tion seemed sure. The Israelites were an un- 
disciplined host ; their wives and children were 
mingled with them; no munitions of war; a 
desert on either side ; the Red sea in front ; all 
Egypt in pursuit infuriated by the plagues which 
the God of these Hebrews had sent upon them. 
The faith of Israel gave way to despair. They 
said to Moses, " Because there were no graves 
in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the 
wilderness? Is not this the Avord that we did 
tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we 
may serve the Egyptians? For it had been bet- 
(2G2) 



THE BEMOVAL OF ISRAEL'S CLOUD. 263 

ter for us to serve the Egj^ptians than that we 
should die iu the wilderness." Little did they 
dream, however, that they were brought there to 
be a spectacle to the world through all ages ; 
they did not remember that man's extremity is 
God's opportunit}^ 

The pillar of cloud which had been to them a 
pioneer in the desert now began to countermarch, 
and took its position at the entrance of the camp. 
Dark as a rising storm to the Egyptians the 
cloud shed light upon Israel, "So that the one 
came not near to 'the other all nig^ht." The 
leader of Israel, by divine command, stretched his 
hand over' the sea and straightway the waters 
saw it and fled ; the bottom of the sea, which for 
age;? had not seen the light, became a floor for 
their feet, a solid road for their beasts of burden ; 
the waters stood up like a heap on either hand. 
" Thej^ went through the flood on foot, there did 
they rejoice iu Him." But as much as they en- 
joyed tlie wall of waters on either hand and the 
marvellous faith which gave them firm foot- 
hold over the bottom of the deep, they were 
ever thinking of the whole military force of Egypt 
in their rear. What if they should be suddenly 
overwhelmed b}^ horses and chariots? These 
walls of water hemmed them in ; flight was im- 
possible. Has God dried up the sea to make a 
grave for Israel ? With an eye of faith one and 



264 THE BEMOVAL OF 

another looked beliind to the pillar of fire which 
had now planted itself in their rear. God was 
there, the angel Jehovah who smote Egj^pt in 
their first-born, whose mercy endureth forever. 
While before them the light from the cloud 
reached to the further shore, tlie cloud itself 
formed an impenetrable veil between Israel and 
the pursuers : no sight of horses and chariots af- 
frighted them any more ; -they saw their ene- 
mies only when the returning waters washed 
their dead bodies to the shore. 

All this was effected by the removal of the 
pillar of cloud from before them to a position in 
their rear, mercifully bringing darkness between 
them and their enemies. The veil hung down 
to keep the pursued from seeing the pursuers, 
while it hid them from their enemies. 

Some of the painters, and an artist in the 
mother country who has illustrated the " Pil- 
grim's Progress," have had wonderful skill in 
throwing light forward and making darkness be- 
hind it. But no pencil is like the hand of Him 
who at creation divided the light from the dark- 
ness ; which He did here, making the past dark 
and the onward way bright. He can let down 
a veil from heaven to earth, and on one side of 
it there shall be darkness which can be felt, and 
on the other side light. 

Though Israel had seen the power of God in 



Israel's cloud to the eear. 265 

the plagues of Eg_ypt, we doubt if any one or 
all of those plagues affectel them as did tlie re- 
moval of that pillared cloud from their front to 
their rear at this crisis in their history, closing 
up to their eyes the terrifying sight of their ene- 
mies, and to the enemies all sight of their help- 
less victims. 

This passage leads me to speak of God our 
Rearward. It is God alone who can make 
the past a source of peace and comfort. We 
think much of the future ; we desire greatly to 
have an assurance that all will be well with us 
in time to come. But do we sufficiently reflect 
liow much this depends on having the past mer- 
cifully considered by our Almighty Friend? 
We accept with gratitude the promise, "The 
Lord shall go before thee ; " but do we fully 
consider how important the concluding part of 
that passage is : — " and be thy rearward ? " 

Never, in any stage of their histor}", did Israel 
need God to go before them more than when 
with the Red Sea in front and Pharaoh pursuing 
them, they needed that God should be their 
rearward. Our happiness depends much at 
times on having the angel of God " which went' 
before " us seem to remove and stand behind us. 
For 

I. We often need to ]5e deeply uvi- 



266 THE REMOVAL OF 

PE^ESSED WITH THE MEMORY OP PAST BLES- 
SINGS. 

Perhaps at the present time, we have, and in 
coming days shall have, occasion to recall the 
interposition of God in our past history. There 
will be times when we shall only need that God 
should do for us according to His past mercies 
to make us perfectly happy ; times when we 
shall say, *' Lord, where are Thy former loving- 
kindnesses which Thou swarest unto David in 
Thy truth?" 

The burden of many a prayer will be, " O 
continue Thy loviug-kindness unto them that 
know Thee." Time after time it will be the 
richest comfort in trial, to recall the favors which 
God did for us in days gone by ; "I was brought 
low and He helped me," will be the all-power- 
ful rebuke to every fear. We are brought into 
straits oftentimes merely for God to show His 
power, or His wisdom, or His surprising good- 
ness; and therefore it is wise at such times, in- 
stead of murmuring, to think of past experience, 
saying, " How can tliB God who did such won- 
derful things for me, fail me now ? " 

The 136bh Psalm has twenty-six verses, each 
of which ends with this : " For His mercy en- 
dureth forever." We feel ashamed when we 
read how Israel said, '^ Cau God furnish a table 



Israel's cloud to the eeae. 267 

in the wilderness? Beliold He smote the rock 
that the waters gushed out, and the streams over- 
flowed ; can He give bread also ? Can He pro- 
vide flesh for His people ? " We acquiesce in 
the punishment which followed, and then, per- 
haps, we sin in like manner. O that the cloud 
would go behind us now and then, to keep us 
from forGrettio'j^ all His benefits. The remem- 
brance of the past is sometimes as good as new 
mercies. We need and still shall need to be im- 
pressed with the memor}- of past blessings. 

II. We need the pillar of cloud be- 

BIKD US FOR OUR PROTECTION FROM THE 
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PAST. 

It availed nothiug to Israel that God had 
brought them out of Egypt with a stretched out 
arm, if they were now to fall a prey before tlie 
pursuing army of Pharaoh. So they cried out, 
" It had been better for us to serve the Egyp- 
tians than that we should die in the wilderness." 
Then the cloud rose and went behind them to 
intercept any evil consequences of their flight 
from Egypt. Tlius we shall need, in future, 
protection from the mistakes, follies, sins of the 
past. We ma}^ have already erred, and the con- 
sequences, if not arrested, may be a Pharaoh 
and his host. Therefore, let the angel of the 



268 THE eemjval of 

covenant go behind us, and let the fieiy pillar 
stand there, to prevent us from direful memor- 
ies. For it is safe to say that a large part of 
human misery arises from regretful recollections. 

We would gladlj^ atone for hasty words and 
rash actions ; but perhaps the wish is vain. We 
omitted some duty and we feel the effects. 
We took a wrong step, and it led into snares. We 
gave occasion for hatred, perhaps lasting en- 
mity. What would we not give if we could for- 
get some unpleasant passage in our behavior! 
Must we go through life with a Pharaoh and his 
chariots and their captains behind us ? We feel 
it Avere better for us to die than to live. But we 
should gain nothing by dying ; we should re- 
trieve nothing, unless we should sleep in Jesus, 
and be at jjeace with God through our Lord Je- 
sus Christ. " Son ! remember " this. For other- 
wise there would be added to these dreadful recol- 
lections which we invoke the grave to b\iry, ten- 
fold more which a quickened memory would 
bring to mind, enmities, sense of loss, partings 
with loved ones, indented in our memories. It 
is better to live and make memory our friend 
through. the blood of Jesus. 

There arp also remembered joys, and it is the na- 
ture of memory to make remembered joys the 
source of sadness unless faith in Jesus and hope 
through grace be in active exercise. Worse than 



ISRAEL'S CLOUD TO THE EEAE. 269 

all there is the recollection of our sins. With the 
memory of them there mingles self-reproach per- 
haps, exceeding everything else in our recollec- 
tion of them. Better for us always if we could 
theu say, " Against Thee, Thee only have I sin- 
ned and done this evil in Thy sight." Better 
for us to fall into the hands of God \vitli sor- 
row for sin. For God can forgive us, and does 
forgive us many a time when we do not forgive 
ourselves ; our pride is wounded, we see we 
are not humbled, when w*e are unwilling to'be 
forgiven. God can confer no greater favor upon 
us in the wa}^ of making us happj^, than by 
standing behind us with the tokens of forgive- 
ness, declaring His righteousness for the re- 
mission of the sins that are past, through the 
forbearance of God. Were we only as just in 
our intercourse wdth God as we are with men, 
in one respect, it would be for our comfort. 
For are we not uneasy when a man has inadver- 
tently paid his bill the second time ? Do we not 
make haste and send him word that the account 
was settled once ? We are not willing to sleep till 
we have returned the money ; we cannot endure 
to be twice paid. God may be said to have such 
feelings toward us ; in proof of which hear these 
words: ''If we confess our sins. He is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness ; " — " faithful and 



270 THE EEMOVAL OF 

just," — implying tliat there would be injustice i" 
His exacting an}^ thing of one who has accepted 
the atonement, pleaded the substitution which 
has been made. It is wonderful that we may 
say this ; but " having boldness by the bloo^ of 
Jesus " we may. 

Some will inquire " Is it not presumption in 
you to saj^ that ? Do you think that confessing 
our sins laj'S God under obligation?" I reply, 
He lays Himself under obligation ; I fear that 
3^ou are timid, unwilling to take God at His 
word. 

There would be a scriptural hope of accept- 
ance with God in manj^ if they would believe 
this simple truth, that confession of sin and ac- 
ceptance of offered pardon through Christ saves 
the soul at once and forever. Divine justice 
will not suffer itself to be paid twice for sin. 
The reason is, Christ died for us ; and " in that' 
He died, he died unto sin once." Some think 
that they cannot have' the pleasure of repentance 
if they are forgiven. Let them know that they 
do not repent at all till they are forgiven. "Re- 
turn unto Me for I have redeemed Thee." — Jer- 
emiah 44 : 22. Repentance after pardon, is not 
only proper; but there is no repentance so deep 
as that which comes with a sense of forgiveness. 
We see this in a child to whom we say, I for- 
give you. How the little heart breaks, how the 



ISEi^EL S CLOUD TO THE EEAE. 271 

tears flow, how pfissionately tlie .arms enfold 
3'our neck. So tlu'ongh the Christian life. We 
all testify tliat we never have felt such sorrow 
for sm as Avhen at the foot of the cross we em- 
brace the feet which were nailed tliere for our 
sins. Rowland Hill said, " If when I lay down 
my pilgrim staff at tlie gate of heaven I should 
drop a tear, it would be at taking leave forever 
of that sweet, safe, profitable companion. Repent- 
ance. 

There is less danger of conviction of sin being 
counterfeit than anything else. We may be de- 
ceived when a child tells us how he loves the 
Saviour; the child may err in thinking its emo- 
tions under the pathetic representations of the 
Saviour's appeals, to be Christian love. But 
when we have seen a child rationally convinced 
of its sinfulness and jet weeping with gratitude 
with a sense of forgiveness, seldom have we 
erred in believing its repentance to be genuine. 
Repentance is the sorrow of love. If we confess 
our sins, pleading the satisfaction which Christ 
has made and which God has accepted, and then 
do not believe that we are forgiven, we are pay- 
ing justice twice ; and that is unbelief. Not be- 
lieving, after all that God through Clirist has 
done for us, is surely wrong. To say " I have 
not repented enough," shows that we are trying 
to make atonement for sin. You cannot do it ; 



272 THE EEMOYAL OF 

even eternal misery Avould not be an adequate 
satisfaction for .sin, for it is not the sacrifice 
\A liicli divine justice lias appointed. The Word 
made flesh is the sacrifice. A soul that pleads 
it, need not say, " I have not repented enough." 
You never can repent enough as a satisfaction 
to divine justice, for repentance is not an atone- 
ment. It is a great mystery, an adorable mys- 
ter}^, it never ceases to amaze the mind of a be- 
liever that trusting in the atonemeiit satisfies 
the conscience of a sinner at once, and he cannot 
explain why it is. Dr. Watts has expressed the 
idea, 

Jesus, my Great High Priest, 

Offered his blood and died ; 
My guilty conscience seeks 
No sacrifice beside. 
His powerful blood did once atone, 
And now it pleads before the throne. 

Why a guilty conscience which has found the 
sacrifice of Christ, is at once quieted, as every 
believer testifies, is a question which no doubt 
the inquisitive Israelites might have asked about 
the brazen serpent, by faith in which, the people 
were restored. Therefore desist at once from 
trying to " feel more," as many say ; as though 
that could atone for you. Believe this : If you 
accept the atonement of Christ as a free gift, you 



Israel's cloud fbom the eeae. 273 

are saved. One miglit stake Ms own personal 
hope of acceptance with God, if he could, on the 
truth \)i this declaration, that- every one who 
confesses to God his sinfulness and accepts Je- 
sus Christ as his substitute, has repented, is jus- 
tified, "shall not come unto condemnation, but 
is passed from death unto life." 

Therefore you may look behind you over the 
whole of life, and see the pillar of cloud moving 
over all, standing behind all, shedding its beau- 
tiful radiance over all 3-our history, as though it 
were saying, "Who is he that condemneth ? It is 
Christ that died." One may boldly plead for 
pardon before he is conscious of having satisfied 
himself with sorrow for sin. Sorrow for sin 
without looking at Christ is self-righteousness. 

The greatest experience in Israel's liistorj^, 
forever mentioned in their sono-s of thankso^ivino^, 
was this act of grace, bestowed upon them when 
they were unbelieving, weak, ready to despair, 
seemingly on the brink of ruin : — wonderful 
sight ! the angel of the Lord breaking camp and 
going to their rear! that beautiful meteor, the 
guiding cloud, sailing back over their six hun- 
dred thousand fighting men, powerless as their 
infants, while Egypt -syas pouring out its swarm- 
ing myriads to swallow them up. So, my soul! 
thy sins and the hosts of hell are ready tliis day 
to destroy thee ; but the angel of the covenant 



274 THE REMOVAL OF 

has not forsaken thee ; faith can see Him, as 
plainly as Israel beheld Him going to their rear to 
stand between them and danger ; are not His 
promises a pillar of cloud to jou, and do they 
not stand, between you and the past, saying, 
" I, even I, am He that blottetli out thy trans- 
gressions for mine own sake, and will not remem- 
ber thy sins ? '' 

This removal, mentioned in the text, of the 
angel Jehovah and His pavilion of cloud from 
the front to the rear of Israel's camp, on the oc- 
casion of their going out of Egypt, is peculiarly 
fitted to instruct us in reviewing the past. So 
it instructed Israel going out of Egypt into the 
untrodden desert. Good people in Israel must 
have been deeply affected to see that wonderful 
meteor which had led their way, taking its posi- 
tion behind them. They must have felt safe, as 
safe as oumipotence could make them, seeing 
that fiery sign hanging down between them and 
Egypt. No dark night or tempest had yet been 
able to quench or even eclipse its preternatural 
light. Egypt finds it as dark as Israel had found 
it luminous. The Israelites were baptized unto 
Moses by this evolution of the cloud and by his 
guidance of Ihem through the sea; we would have 
been willing to predict their confidence in him 
their leader, until they had reached the Prom- 
ised Land. And as for God, He, by one act 



Israel's cloud to the eear. 275 

passing from front to rear in that critical hour, the 
cloud shedding darkness on Pharoah, and light 
on Israel, tlie waters too, standing up on either 
side of them, stretched His line upon* them, and 
His hand gave the sea His decree that the waters 
should not pass over. 

Of all that host that came out of Egypt by- 
Moses, only two adults reached Canaan ; because 
they believed not God, but forsook the counsel 
of th^ Most High. Therefore, God kept the na- 
tion wandering forty years in the wilderness ; 
unbelief postponed the settlement of Israel in 
Canaan for a whole generation. 

Now I will point you to several things and ask 
you a question. See that angel who is destroy- 
ing all the first-born of man and beast in Egypt 
pausing before each door where the liyssop 
branch had sprinkled the passover blood, leaving 
the little company within unharmed. Take 
your place in imagination where you can see the 
hosts of Eg3^pt struggling in the waters; seethe 
light thrown forward on the hindmost of Israel's 
company arriving safe ashore. Now as you join 
in the song of Moses there, or follow the com- 
pan}^ of women with their timbrels, this is my 
question ; Are you not willing to make prophecy 
that a people with such a God is sure be a na- 
tion of believers ? For still look on : Nation af- 
ter nation melts away before tliem ; Jordan emu- 



276 THE REMOVAL OF 

lating tlie Red sea, and the people passing out of 
its d;-ied bed; from which twelve, stones are 
taken, for an altar of witnesses. See them going 
round a great city in silence six days ; on the 
seventh day blowing rams' horns, and without a 
javelin thrown, those walls fall as by an earth- 
quake ; a great city is made defenceless in a 
moment. , Israel is soon in possession, not only 
of that city but of the land of the Canaanites, 
Hittites, Amorites, Gerizzites, Hivites andJebu- 
sites. O, had they hearkened to the voice of 
God and walked in His waj^ ! 

We cannot conceive of the national greatness 
to which that people would have attained; or of 
the progress which they would have made in 
the arts of life, discoveries, inventions, and all 
that can ennoble the human race. Contemptuous 
word of inspiration, " their carcasses fell in the 
wilderness." Carrying out their unbelief they 
killed the Prince of life, of whom they were the 
betrayers and murderers, and they have never 
repented of it; they are now in their dis- 
persion a standing monument of unbelief and 
its consequences. God help us to do contrary 
to their example. We are .worse than they if 
Ave are unbelievers in Christian congregations. 
Believe God. Believe on His Son whom He has 
sent. Obey His gospel. Keep His command- 
ments. 



ISRAELS CLOUD TO THE EEAR. 277 

And now, Angel of that covenant ! stand we 
pray you over against the past ; cover our sms 
with tlie atoning blood ; reimnd us of past mer- 
cies ; be a shield to us against the evil conse- 
quences of our sins and of our follies ; make the 
way behind us a Red Sea, burying unpleasant 
recollections, fears, transgressions ; then go be- 
fore us on our heavenward wa}^. 

Finalh", Tliis rearivarcl angel and this jnllar of 
cloud seem to hid me to say to believers^ It shall 
he luell ivith you. For these two things are true 
concerning all who believe in Jesus. First, You 
have not seen your best days; and, Secondly, 
YoQ never will. Never through eternity, will 
you arrive at that summit of bliss from which 
3'ou will anticipate declension. Onward and up- 
ward is to be 3'our way. " Thou wilt show me 
the path of life ; in Thy presence is fulness of 
joy ; at Th}^ right hand are pleasures forever- 
more." Such is the prospect of all who repent 
and believe. 

. To all others remaining in unbelief it is equalh^ 
true. First, You have not seen your worst days. 
No angel of the covenant is standing behind 
3'ou; for you have made no covenant with God. 
No pillared cloud has been leading you ; uncov- 
enanted mercy, liable at any time to leave you, 
good fortune, luck, chance, is j'ouronly security. 
Litter as your sufferings may have been, there 



278 THE REMOVAL OF ISRAEL'S CLOUD. 

are greater iu store if you continue without 
Christ. Great as your losses have been, you 
have more to lose ; bereavements can make jon 
still more desolate ; enmities more excruciating 
are laid up for you ; your Avay is into a Red sea 
Avith the waters standing round to bury you; and, 
Secondly^ As you have not yet seen your worst 
days, so, remaining without Christ, you never 
will. There will be alwa3^s something worse to 
come. Prevent this by immediate acceptance 
of that Gospel which 3^ou have heard so long in 
vain. 

Now, he who with one act of faith 

Shall confidently say, 
I look for pardon through Thy blood, 

Is saved, saved now ; alway. 

"And the Spirit and the Bride say. 
Come. And let hem that heareth say. 
Come. And let hem that is athirst Come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the 



V' 



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